


But the wolf is always there

by dwellingondreams



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Arranged Marriage, Berena is Salty, Canon Divergence - Robert's Rebellion, Canon-Typical Violence, Casterly Rock, Cersei's Not Great But She's Not The Villain, Classic Stark Sarcasm, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Everyone Has Issues, F/M, Greyjoy Rebellion, House Lannister, House Stark, Infidelity, Jaime Lannister Being An Asshole, Joffrey Baratheon is his own warning, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Lannister Family Drama, Original Character(s), POV Female Character, Parenthood, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Sexism, Period-Typical Underage, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-A Game of Thrones, Pre-Canon, Present Tense, Sibling Incest, Slow Burn, The Battle of the Blackwater, Time Skips, Tywin Lannister's A+ Parenting, War of the Five Kings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 12:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 44
Words: 110,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15218939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwellingondreams/pseuds/dwellingondreams
Summary: (Even when I can't see it) - Brianna AlbersJaime Lannister is still grinning that false grin at her. Berena stares at him, almost stricken, wishing he’d stop it, and his green eyes flicker like flames and then burn colder. “You can’t imagine how pleased I am to finally meet my bride.”This is not directed at her, but at Ned. She’s not even worth the direct acknowledgement, apparently. This is between them. He loathes Ned- likely for calling for his head for treason and successfully stripping him of his position- and this is the best blow he can strike.You named me a Kingslayer, but it will be your little sister, your honorable flesh and blood, in my bed, Stark.She can feel Ned tense, and unthinkingly, reaches back and grabs his arm without looking at him. “And I,” Berena lies sweetly, shrilly, and with eyes hard as stone, “am so pleased to finally meet my bridegroom, my lord. They speak of you and your valiant deeds from here to the Wall.”





	1. Chapter 1

Berena wakes in the early hours of the morning; pale blue-grey light is seeping in through the windows of the room she and Lyanna have been sharing at Riverrun. But the castle is quiet, and the birds have yet to begin to even sing. She rubs at her eyes and squints over at her sister’s bed; it is empty.

“Lya?” Lyanna has never been an early riser; even when they were small, Berena was always the cheery one in the morning, while her elder sister sulked and brooded until she’d broken her fast. But Lyanna is not in bed right now; she is rifling through her trunk, pulling on her warmest cloak. 

“Go back to sleep, Beri.” Lyanna is affixing the silver clasp, and arranging the hood over her hair. Like Brandon, Lya has Father’s dark brown curls, while Ned and Berena share Mother’s hair, a lighter, softer shade of brown, which hangs limp and straight around their long faces. 

Berena is tired, worn out from their recent travel south and the preparations for Brandon’s marriage to Catelyn Tully, who is eagerly awaiting his arrival. By this time next year, Lyanna will be wed as well, to Robert Baratheon. Ned and Berena are yet unbetrothed, as Father is more concerned with marrying off his eldest son and daughter first, but Berena knows it will be soon. She is newly thirteen and flowered a few months past, earlier than Lyanna, even.

“Where are you going?” she asks drowsily, lying back against her pillow. Riverrun is draftier than the interior of Winterfell in the winter, because its walls are not heated the way her home’s walls are. The fire in the grate has died down to smoldering embers; she means to get up and tend to it, but the cold is biting at her face, and she pulls the bedcovers up under her chin like a child.

“Out for a ride,” Lyanna is looking away from her, turned towards the door, but then she pauses and turns back. “Go to sleep, Berena. I’ll be back soon.” She smiles faintly, but her eyes are shadowed. Berena is too tired to discern any deeper meaning in her words, and nods faintly, although Lyanna is not permitted to go out riding unchaperoned.

Of course, Lya is not permitted to do many things, and still she persists in doing them. Berena is less alarmed and more bemused, as her eyes flutter closed again. Of course Lyanna is taking advantage of the milder southron winters to go out for an early morning ride. Berena loves to ride as well, but she has never outraced Lya and her favorite black courser, Artos. 

So Lyanna goes and Berena sleeps, and when she awakens an hour later, the birds are singing and a maid is stoking up the fire. 

“Has my sister gone down to eat?” Berena asks politely; she is always polite with servants, for she spent more of her childhood than was proper down in the kitchens of Winterfell with Lyanna, listening wide-eyed to the gossip of the cooks and bakers. 

The serving girl turns to her, face flushed from her morning’s work. “She was already gone when I came in, milady.”

“But she…” Berena scrambles out from under the bedcovers, shoving her bare feet into her slippers, and pads over to Lyanna’s empty bed. She opens her sister’s trunk; the cloak is still missing, and her riding boots. 

She pauses, and then roots around further, and freezes. The sword is missing as well. Lyanna has had it for over a year, since the tourney, when she won it off the Frey squire. She declared it the only sword worth keeping, of the three she confiscated as the laughing knight.

Lya has kept that sword well hidden from all but Berena. Brandon and Ned may have their suspicions, but Father can never know that it was his daughter who caused not one but two scandals at the tourney at Harrenhal. She would never carry it on her person for a simple ride through Tully lands. 

If Lyanna took the sword, then she set out to do something else entirely. 

“Milady?” the maid asks warily, from behind her, as Berena slowly straightens up. “Is something wrong, begging your pardon?”

Berena moves quickly to the window, hoping to see a black mount and its slim rider in the courtyard below. But Lyanna is not there. She turns back round to face the maid, fighting a losing battle to keep her expression composed. Something is wrong. Lya knows better than to stay out this long. She would not dare sneak off to practice her swordplay mere days before their brother’s wedding. Something is very, very wrong.

“I-,”

There’s a sudden commotion from down below, and Berena whirls around to the window, throwing it all the way open. Frigid morning air rushes in to greet her as she leans out to hear what the men below are yelling. 

“Someone fetch Lord Stark!” a boy is scrambling down from his horse, red-faced and panting. “His daughter- they’ve taken her!” More cries follow, horses neigh and whinny in alarm as boots stamp across the frost-coated ground. “Lord Stark! Awaken the Starks! The prince’s taken the lady Lyanna!”

Lyanna never does come back, and Berena never does forgive her for that one, final lie.

Berena is sent home to Winterfell immediately, with thirty men and neither her father nor her brothers. She has settled into her role of lady of Winterfell for less than a month when a raven arrives with news of Father and Brandon’s deaths. Berena inspects their winter stores and sits on a rock in the godswood, catching snowflakes on her tongue and imagining she hears her siblings laughing in the howl of the wind. 

Ned comes North to call the banners, but only goes so far as White Harbor. Berena cannot go to see him before he leaves; there must always be a Stark in Winterfell, for the last time they were all away Father and Brandon died. She is left with old men and young boys and frightened women. The fighting is in the South, and they must be thankful for that. Berena is not. 

She turns fourteen alone. There is no name day feast this year, no special treat of mulled wine or lemon cakes. Ned marries Catelyn Tully, and she is glad; she always liked the girl Brandon called Cat, with her soft blue eyes and her coppery hair. Rhaegar, who viciously stole away Lya, kicking and screaming, or who gallantly set her atop his noble white horse, while they rode off into the winter morn, depending on who you ask and what tale you believe, dies at the Trident. 

There is no news of Lyanna. Part of Berena almost fears her return; the Lya who comes back to her will not be the Lya who left her, regardless of whether she left willingly or not. The girl who told Berena to go back to sleep, who had a stolen sword at her waist, would not be the woman who returns. They whisper that if Ned does bring her back, she will be ruined, in more ways than one.

So in a way, she is already a little dead in Berena’s heart. 

King’s Landing falls. The North sneers at the tales of the treacherous lions and the golden Kingslayer, who slit the Mad King’s Throat as he sat atop his Iron Throne. Berena has always been a gentler soul than her elder siblings, perhaps because she has always been the coddled youngest. She does not have it in her to hate the man who killed Aerys Targaryen, no matter how dishonorable it might have been.

Ned rides furth south, and Berena remains in the North. She should be betrothed by now, but there is no one to arrange such a thing, and few lords are impudent enough to approach her, knowing all the while that their lord seeks out her missing sister. She is not surprised when Ned returns with only bones. Lyanna would never admit defeat, no matter the circumstances- she would have returned home triumphantly or not at all, and there is no triumph in what happened to her. 

Along with the bones is a pale babe with a shock of dark curls and solemn grey eyes. Ned tells Berena the child is his son, Jon Snow. He is her lord now, not just her brother, dear Ned, who she could always turn to when Brandon or Lya injured her feelings, so she doesn't laugh in his face. Nor does she believe him. Jon Snow is no son of Eddard Stark, but he must be, Berena may be a silly girl with a lopsided smile and a freckled nose, but she understands that much. He must be.

Catelyn is a welcome relief, and with her is little Robb, who Berena adores on sight. She is not as fiercely protective of him as she is of Jon, but he is still her nephew, for all his Tully looks, and Catelyn her goodsister, her only sister. Catelyn is a discreet girl and never mentions Lyanna’s name. Berena prefers it that way, prefers to pretend the last two years were just a nasty dream, like one of her childhood nightmares. She’d much rather smile and laugh and bounce Ned’s son and not-son in her lap.

Ned does not tell her until after she turns fifteen, three months after what remains of her family comes home. He does not tell her until after dinner one evening, when she sits in her room, combing through her hair. He knocks politely at her door, which is half open. Berena tucks her legs up underneath her; she has long, horsey legs, she thinks, and was taller than Lya even when Lya was eleven and she ten. She has a longer, less attractive face as well, with a snub nose and ears that stick out ever so slightly. Old Nan always said it was the wildling blood in her. Wildlings are familiar with stolen sisters as well.

Ned is looking at her sadly, and Berena hunches her shoulders. “What is it?”

“There’s something I must tell you.” He approaches her bed, and cautiously sits down at the end of it. He is a battle-tested man now, but Berena still sees the quiet boy in him when he sits like that, slouched slightly, head down. 

“Then tell it quick,” she says lightly, “before I fall asleep on you, brother.” 

That does not provoke much of a smile from him, and she grows tenser, huddling up against his side, hoping he might wrap a long arm around her and pull her close, but he has a wife and a son now. And she is not a child anymore. 

“When I returned to King’s Landing from Dorne, Robert was… distraught when he learned of Lyanna,” Ned says quietly. “He had… well, I do not know what he had hoped.”

“He could not have wed her,” Berena says, forcing sensibility into her voice. “Even if she had lived. It would- she couldn’t have been queen.” 

“Yes,” says Ned after a moment. “But- he did ask after you, Berena.”

Her blood runs cold. “Me?” she chokes out incredulously, giving the comb a vicious tug through her hair. “I- I don’t understand.” But she does. Brandon died, so Ned married Catelyn instead. Lyanna died, so… But Robert is not just a lord anymore, not just a Baratheon of Storm’s End. Now he is king, and it is not so simple as to substitute one sister for another. 

Besides, he gains nothing through marriage to a Stark- their loyalty to the new regime is assured, Ned fought beside him. Still, there is a certain romance to it, she thinks, although she has never been swayed by Robert’s charming smiles and fair looks. He was never worthy of Lya.

“He is to marry Cersei Lannister,” Ned says, breaking through her frantic thoughts. “Jon and the rest of his council were quick to convince him of that. Lord Tywin,” and now Ned comes as close to a sneer as he ever will, “would be satisfied with nothing less, after the part he played in securing the throne.”

“Good,” says Berena savagely. She has never met Cersei Lannister, but a Lannister is better suited to court and the capitol than a Stark. They were not meant to go South. Father was… he was mistaken to think otherwise. Lyanna would never have been happy as Robert’s wife, even if he kept to her bed only. 

Only then it occurs to her. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because Robert dismissed Ser Jaime from the Kingsguard.” Ned should be pleased; he would never hold with the killer of one king defending another, but he does not look it or sound it.

“Is he being sent to the Wall?” Berena asks, startled. Lord Tywin would never allow it, and she cannot imagine Robert agreeing to such a thing. He likely congratulated the Kingslayer for killing Aerys before he could. 

“No,” Ned’s jaw has become locked and hardened, and he barely grits the words out. “He has been restored as Lord Tywin’s heir.”

Berena still fails to see why any of this concerns her, although she is glad Ned is confiding in her. She wants them to be close again, as they were when they were children. They are all that remains of the children of Rickard and Lyarra Stark. The pack survives, as Father always said.

“Berena,” Ned turns to face her properly now, and puts his hands on her shoulders. She sets down the comb in her lap. “Robert promised your hand to Jaime Lannister.”

Berena stares at him for a moment, searching his face, and then breaks free of his grip. He does not try to stop her. “I- I can’t marry a Lannister,” she sputters, and it would be funny were she not skittering across the floor like a wild creature backed into a corner, her damp hair clinging to her neck. “Ned- how could you agree to such a thing, this is mad-,”

“Robert is the king now,” Ned stays where he is, “and you are unbetrothed, Berena.”

“I am unbetrothed because- because everyone died!” she cries, throwing her hands up. “I am unbetrothed because there was no one here to betroth me, and no one to betroth me to! We were at war!”

“And now the war is over, and Lord Tywin wants his heir wed.” Ned is not reproachful or affronted by her outrage. He would never use his new status as lord- her lord- to force her into submission. But he is not groveling for her forgiveness, either. 

“I was not in favor of the match, Berena. I spoke out against it, but I could only protest so much. Peace is fragile. Robert’s reign is far from secure. Many families would be well pleased to marry into the Lannister line, and while I do not think a Stark would be Tywin’s first choice, he was not opposed to the idea.”

“What of Ser Jaime?” She cannot imagine him willingly agreeing to wed the sister of a man who despises him so. And he is a man- he may not be forced so easily as a woman, if he does not wish to wed. 

“Ser Jaime will do as his father tells him, dutiful son that he is.” Ned is nearly sarcastic, and she would smile were she not so close to screaming. It is not even that she loathes the idea of being the Kingslayer’s wife, although she far from welcomes it, but the idea of leaving home- of being lady of Casterly Rock-

“I insisted that the wedding wait until you came of age.”

A year. That is all she has left here, with her family, in her home. A year. And then she will be off to the Westerlands, perhaps to never set foot in the North again.

“Eddard.” Berena is close to tears now. “I… I can’t… I don’t want to,” she says piteously, because she doesn't know what else to say. A good sister would thank her brother for such a fine match, would be thrilled at the idea of life at Casterly Rock. “I don’t want to marry him, Ned, I don’t want to leave, I… why couldn’t I marry a Northman, stay here-,”

He takes her hands in his own, and pulls her close, massaging her heaving back. “I know. Would that you could. I don’t want you to go either. But we all must… we all must do our duties. You are a Stark of Winterfell. No Lannister could ever change that.”

She knows that. She is a highborn lady, and while that rank comes with many privileges, it also comes with many duties. It is her duty to wed for the greater good of the seven kingdoms. If this will help preserve the peace, prevent further bad blood between the Lannisters and the Starks, then it is not a question of wanting.


	2. Chapter 2

Berena has never had the luxury of anger, righteous or not. When she was small she was little Beri, the youngest Stark, content to play happily, humming to herself in the shadow of her siblings. And even humble Ned cast a long shadow, sent off to learn courtesies and valor in the knightly Vale, dear friends with the future lord paramount of the Stormlands. 

Brandon and Lya had their wolfish ways, their savage smiles and howling rage, a hungry glint in their grey eyes. Ned was milder snow and enduring stone to their ice and steel, but even he was not one to cross, with his cold, unblinking stares and long, methodical strides. Berena was always… well, she had always had the impression that while her siblings were wolves, she was more akin to a dog. Loyal and not lacking in enthusiasm, but not terribly imposing or threatening.

And she did not mind that title. She was content, as a little child, to run gleefully after Lyanna, clashing wooden swords with her in the godswood and giving in to all her willful whims and outbursts of anger. She loved her sister, loves her sister still, but Berena never once considered them equals. Only a year lay between them, but Lya was ever Father’s favorite, and she had not caused the long, slow death of Mother, after all.

Berena was ever an amiable, cheerful child, not easily angered or put out, quicker to forgive and forget than the rest of her family. Perhaps she was not the most graceful or the most clever, but she was eager to learn and never proud or vain. She had no reason to be discontent with her lot in life when everyone was inclined to like her, to spoil her, to humor her more lighthearted ways, calling upon her to sing at feasts and ruffling her hair like a cherished pet.

It did not occur to her to be angry or resentful or bitter when the war began, because her duty was clearly laid before her; she was the Stark in Winterfell, the only Stark left. It was her duty, at the tender age of thirteen, and then fourteen, to put on a hopeful air and go about her day as normal, seeing that the castle ran as smoothly as it had under her father’s rule, settling disputes, keeping spirits raised. 

She was a physical representation of what the North had yet to lose, and they loved her for it. Lord Rickard and young Brandon and beautiful Lyanna might be lost to them, but Berena Stark remained, a sweet, innocent girl who would still come out and sing for them after supper, who spent more time sewing winter garments than weeping piteously by a window, waiting for her family to return.

There was no room for thoughts of ‘what if’ or ‘this should not’. Until the war had ended, and Ned came home. And then the doubts and anger creep in, one by one, like weary travelers to an inn. It isn’t fair. She has done everything she was supposed to, has never despaired, has kept herself from breaking down time after time, and her reward is- not a quiet life surrounded by family and friends, with a proper Northron husband, but what seems more like exile.

Berena had never asked for much. She didn’t want to marry a great lord or ride off and have adventures or catch the eye of a perfect prince. She just wanted to be with Father and her siblings, and be happy. It seemed like a simple enough wish. She would not have complained, would have been pleased, rather, to wed one of the northern lords who’d survived the war. She would have done so without complaint, even if he were old or maimed or ugly. She would have borne him sons and daughters and visited Winterfell often, would have watched her children play with Neds, and even if her life were dull or hard she still would not have begrudged it.

She had no expectations to fulfill, no wild fancies to grant. She was perfectly content to be another branch of the family tree, Berena Stark, daughter of Rickard and Lyarra, with no great deeds or romantic tales to her name. Just a life well-lived, with friends and family to share it with, and stories to tell round the fire of her own childhood, when they were happy, when there was peace.

It seems a cruel slap in the face to have all that brushed aside for the sake of politics- a game Ned has never played, but one that has seen her dumped onto the board like a misshapen piece, to be prodded about by outside forces. Ned should have fought for her- she is his only surviving kin, he should have spat in Robert Baratheon and Tywin Lannister’s faces rather than let her go, he should have had her wed as soon as he returned home-

But that is not the way the world works. Brandon believed one could settle disputes with a battle cry and the sheen of a blade, and he died for it. Horrifically. Absurdly. Not even in battle. Strangled to death at court, while men sat in their silks and satins and watched in stunned terror, and a mad king crowed. Brandon would have died before he let Berena wed the Kingslayer. 

Brandon was a fool. 

Lyanna would never agree to such a thing. She may have held her tongue after Father announced her betrothal to Robert, in fact- in the early days, before she knew of Robert’s whoring, she was not altogether opposed to the match, although she told Father that she wished to wed a northman- but Lyanna would never meekly acquiesce to something like this. She’d ride off in the dead of the night with a sword at her back, like Danny Flint in the old songs. 

Lyanna was a fool as well. 

Brandon was a fool to believe that the Targaryens would bow to the rules of honorable lords, would come out and fight like mortal men, and Lyanna was a fool to believe that Rhaegar Targaryen was the solution to her woes, a shining prince who’d take her for a second wife as Aegon took Rhaenys, who’d let her come and go as she pleased like a warrior queen. Or perhaps they did not believe that at all. 

Berena does not know, because they never told her. Brandon did not stop to comfort her before he raced off to King’s Landing, and Lyanna did not confide in her, although Berena sat beside her when Rhaegar, clad in gleaming black, offered her the crown of love and beauty on the tip of his lance. Lyanna took it, but did not smile at him, and did not place it atop her head the way a sillier girl might have, as Elia Martell watched stiffly mere seats away. Instead she set it in her lap, and watched Rhaegar ride away.

Berena had been proud of her, in a way. Proud to show the rest of them that they were different, they were Starks, wolf-blooded girls, not so easily won over by a handsome face and a sad song. Too cold and hard to melt into the arms of any man who had not proven himself their equal. But Rhaegar was cold, in a way. His beauty mesmerized Lyanna, who said briefly that he looked like some faerie creature from deep in the wood. It frightened Berena, who thought his silver hair and haunting eyes unnatural, alien. 

Brandon and Lyanna are dead. She gains no wisdom from arguing with their shades before she sinks into a fitful sleep each night. She takes no satisfaction from resenting Ned. She could offer him hateful stares and frigid silences each night at dinner, but he is all she has. If she is to leave him, she is not proud enough or stubborn enough to leave him on such bad terms. She did not get to say goodbye to Brandon or Lya. And Father’s goodbye was- well, he had far more important things on his mind than her happiness.

So instead she ignores the inevitable. She talks and laughs with Catelyn, ignoring the occasional pity that drifts into her goodsister’s blue-eyed gaze, she takes Robb’s pudgy hands in her own as he toddles across the nursery, she sings lullabies to Jon under her breath and whispers stories of his mother, for as long as he is too young to understand. She smiles at Ned, who now looks at her sometimes as if staring at her corpse. He is punishing himself more than she ever could.

Winterfell will host not just the Lannisters for the wedding, but the royal party as well, for Lady Cersei weds Robert two months before Berena is to wed Ser Jaime. Catelyn is in a state over it, and Berena would be too, were she still lady of Winterfell. She tries not to begrudge Catelyn too much for usurping the role. After all, Berena had no great celebrations to arrange during her own reign; she entertained no guests. 

At the very least, she will be wed in the godswood, not the new sept that Ned has just finished constructing for Catelyn. The Lannisters are not renowned for their devout natures, and so it is perhaps not so much of a surprise that neither Lord Tywin nor the Kingslayer seem particularly affronted at the idea of wedding in the eyes of the old gods, rather than the new. Although there was an addendum in one particular raven that specified that the marriage would be blessed by Casterly Rock’s own septon upon the couple’s return home.

Home. After she is wed, she will return ‘home’. To the westerlands. Where the summer burns hot and dry across the rolling hills and grassy plains. Even the mountains are different there, smaller, and the rivers and lakes seldom freeze. There are no pines for the wind to whisper through, and the towns and villages are much closer together. They say Lannisport is the most beautiful city in all of Westeros, and one of the most safest.

It holds no excitement for Berena. She is not thrilled to be leaving behind a ‘savage northern wasteland’. She has never disdained well-made gowns or the rare piece of jewelry, but the Lannisters’ wealth offers little temptation. It is not to say that she is so simple, so pure, that she will turn up her nose at all of it. 

At the very least, if she were a little more vain, she’d have that to look forward to. She doesn’t really believe she’s going to live the rest of her life in abject misery, acting like a prisoner of war held in some decrepit dungeon while she’s surrounded by wealth and beauty. 

It’s just that… she’ll be alone. Totally and completely alone. Even during the war, she still had familiar faces at her side. She at least had the comfort of her childhood home, the reassurance that Winterfell remained, even if her family did not. She had a godswood to pray in, crypts to wander through, and banners bearing a grey wolf on the walls. She knew her people, knew their customs, knew their names, their stories.

A few books detailing the history and prominent houses of the westerlands are not much of a start on an entirely different culture. Members of House Lannister typically have golden blonde hair and green eyes. Wonderful. She’ll fit right in. The westerlands’ mines produce the vast majority of the region’s wealth. Of course. The caves in the north contain bears, not gold.

“I knew little of the North before I wed Ned,” Catelyn tells her sympathetically, less than a month before she is to be wed. “Or afterwards. When I came here I was… overwhelmed. I had never seen anything like it before- the riverlands are so flat, and wet-,”

Berena knows what she is trying to say, but at the very least, Catelyn had been raised with the expectation that she would one day be lady of Winterfell from the age of twelve onwards. She was delighted at the prospect of marrying Brandon, and who wouldn’t be? 

Brandon was handsome and charming and hot-headed and while he whored as much as Robert, he had the good sense to be quiet about it. He might have not have been strictly loyal after marrying Cat, but he never would have shamed her.

“I could have been kinder to you, when you came,” Berena feels a flash of guilt. She was far more concerned with seeing Ned again than necessarily reaching out to his pretty, reserved bride. “I should have helped you to adjust more, to life here.”

“Don’t be silly,” Catelyn squeezes her shoulder as they sit in the window-seat of the lady’s chambers that were once Mother’s. “You were kind, kinder than I expected, for someone who’d lost so much. You took our minds off the war- you were so… light, and happy.”

Berena studies her freckled hands. She has not been very light as of late. Morose, is more like it, dragging her feet like a petulant child, looking as though she might vomit when her dowry or wedding gown are brought up in conversation. “I’m being ungrateful. About the match. I know.”

“You are reacting as anyone might when given a nasty, permanent shock,” Catelyn says. “Ned would- it would be absurd to expect you to be overjoyed at the prospect of leaving your home, your family behind, for a…,” her voice lowers some, almost guiltily, “for a man like that.”

“An honorless man for a goodbrother. It’s Ned’s worst nightmare.” Berena tries to smile, but it’s more of a grimace.

“He- a man may fall short in one aspect, but not in another,” Catelyn says after a moment, taking her hands. “He may still be a fine husband to you, and a fair lord, even if he…”

“Betrayed his king and vows?” Berena does exhale in amusement at that. “I’m not… as concerned about that as Ned. I- I don’t think I’ll be mistreated, or… anything like that, I only… it is not what I had hoped. I don’t know. I should not have hoped for anything at all, it…” 

She should not have said that, either. Catelyn never hoped to marry Ned, or to arrive home to find his bastard in the nursery. Her brother and his wife may be fond of one another, but Robb is barely a year old. There is no love between them, not yet, and there may never be any. 

Who is she, to complain to Catelyn Tully of an undesired match, of a husband she feels certain will disappoint her? But Catelyn is too gracious to chastise her, and merely wraps an arm around her instead, as if they were really sisters.

The Lannisters arrive a week before Robert, streaming in through Winterfell’s gates in a parade of bold scarlet and gold. Lions snarl at every corner, and the Kingslayer’s armor shines even under the northern summer sun. Berena wears one of her finest gowns, although early summer in the north still calls for long sleeves and a cloak. Her gown is subdued grey, with intricate silver flowers sewed into the bodice, and a high neckline that reveals none of her admittedly small chest.

Berena is best described as coltish, a girl who was recently tall and gawky for her age, with a thin face, long neck, and sometimes ungainly limbs. She does have small hands and feet, and her hair is intricately braided, to disguise how thin and straight it is, but she does not expect to see any great revelation of her beauty. Lyanna was a true beauty, albeit in a wild northern way, taking after Mother’s mother, Arya Flint of the mountain clan. Berena looks more like Mother, who while never ugly, was a plainer, less striking woman. 

She had half expected to see Ser Jaime in the white armor of the Kingsguard, but his armor is as golden as the hair he reveals when he removes his helm. He is very handsome, but in a way that cut at Berena, makes her wary of looking at him head-on, in a similar way that Rhaegar had. His looks are too distracting; it makes her uneasy. He is more muscular than she had thought, as well, as he dismounts from his heaving stallion.

He smiles directly at her, to her surprise, but his smile is too wide and too bright; it is a smile meant to dazzle. Berena curtsies neatly to avoid having to smile back, conscious of Ned at her side, stiff as a board, face already set in a look of grim endurance, as if they are about to undergo a gruesome torture. Catelyn at least has put on a welcoming smile, with Rob babbling happily in her arms. 

“Lady Berena.” There is no way to describe his voice other than mocking. Berena glances back up at the Kingslayer. He has seen through her already, and obviously found her wanting. That must make two of them, for she sees nothing redeemable in him, either, no trace of kindness or even curiosity. He does not want to be here, he does not want to be speaking with her, and his tone states that whatever he has been expecting, it was not her. 

Perhaps the king had promised him Lyanna’s near-twin. Her sister’s beauty was such that her refusal to conform to what the role of a lady demanded was almost forgiven. Berena has no such beauty to fall back on. “Ser Jaime.”

“Lord, now,” he says lightly. “I’m told that’s the more crucial of the two.” He kisses her hand. She flinches slightly, and hates herself for it. At the very least she ought to summon up an ounce of cold haughtiness to properly combat his mocking green eyes and superficial smile. All she can do is flush and gape, like the fool he probably believes her to be. 

Lord Tywin has dismounted as well, and stiffly greets Ned and Catelyn, before his cold gaze roams over her. Berena is familiar with cold, distant men. Father was as hard and frosty as they come, at times, but there was also a softness in his eyes when he spoke of Mother or looked on as Brandon and Ned trained at swords, and he was never cruel, never spiteful.

“Well met, Lady Berena,” Tywin Lannister says, and the feeling of being found wanting returns in full force. His eyes flicker over her gown and thin face and long neck and awkward ears and the red flaming in her cheeks, and he adopts the look of a man who is disappointed but not surprised. In fact, he seems almost comfortable with his disappointment. 

She curtsies again. “Lord Tywin. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Hm,” says Tywin, “I’m sure, my lady.”

Jaime Lannister is still grinning that false grin at her. Berena stares at him, almost stricken, wishing he’d stop it, and his green eyes flicker like flames and then burn colder. “You can’t imagine how pleased I am to finally meet my bride.” 

This is not directed at her, but at Ned. She’s not even worth the direct acknowledgement, apparently. This is between them. He loathes Ned- likely for calling for his head for treason and successfully stripping him of his position- and this is the best blow he can strike. _You named me a Kingslayer, but it will be your little sister, your honorable flesh and blood, in my bed, Stark._

She can feel Ned tense, and unthinkingly, reaches back and grabs his arm without looking at him. “And I,” Berena lies sweetly, shrilly, and with eyes hard as stone, “am so pleased to finally meet my bridegroom, my lord. They speak of you and your valiant deeds from here to the Wall.”

That rather sets the tone for the rest of the day, and the ones that follow.


	3. Chapter 3

Berena thinks she has perhaps never been more uncomfortable in her short life than she currently is, seated mere feet from the newly crowned queen of Westeros. It is an unusually warm day, even for a northern summer, and there is a breeze stirring the wildflowers set out on the table by a maid. 

Cersei Lannister looks out of place in Winterfell’s admittedly rustic guesthouse; a gleaming golden goddess of a woman surrounded by crude stone walls and faded tapestries, her lily-white hands contrasting with the dark grain of the table. She is wearing a welcoming smile, and she still wears her hair like a maiden- her blonde ringlets fall around her slender shoulders and breasts. 

If the Kingslayer is intimidatingly handsome, than the queen is terrifyingly beautiful. Berena had heard the tales of Tywin Lannister’s sole daughter, the woman they call the Sun of the West, the perfect wife for a king who has rewritten history. Berena quails before her; what else can she do? She is pallid and pale in comparison, a skinny, necky thing in umber seated across from a vision in emerald green. 

The emeralds at Cersei’s swan-like throat are glinting fiercely in the afternoon sunlight. Berena is transfixed by them; precious jewels are hard to come by in the north, even for the ladies of great houses, and pearls are more common than anything else. Rubies and emeralds and sapphires are few and far between. 

“But you are such a sweet little thing,” says Cersei warmly, and she reaches across the spread of pastries and fresh fruit grown in Winterfell’s glass gardens, and takes Berena’s hand in her own. Her skin is very soft, and her hand is burning hot, to Berena’s surprise. Cersei holds her hand, hard, and does not break eye contact. Berena half-expects the woman to either hug her to her chest or drive a knife into her neck.

“You cannot be sixteen,” Cersei continues, in the tone of one speaking to a child of questionable intellect- Berena supposes it could be far worse, after all, for they are entirely alone aside from the knight at the door- “can you, truly? You look half a child, Berena.”

Not ‘Lady Berena’. Just Berena. A quaint, decidedly northern name for a quaint, wide-eyed, northern girl. The queen seems three parts wildly amused by this choice in wife for her twin, and one part… something else, which Berena cannot identify. 

It could be hate, or it could be pity, or it could be both. Or she could simply be paranoid, and it may be that she is of no note to Cersei- after all, why should she care who her brother weds? She is a queen now. Every woman in Westeros is inferior to her.

“I am sixteen, Your Grace.” says Berena, uncertainly, because one does not contradict a queen.

Cersei squeezes her hand sharply and then releases it, spearing the slice of peach on her plate with her cutting knife. “Of course. It is just you seem so very young and naive. But I suppose that is a welcome thing in times like these, after all that… unpleasantness.”

Yes, Berena thinks, the unpleasantness that took all but one member of my family from me. “I have been… sheltered, Your Grace, being the youngest of my house. My… my brothers and sister were very protective of me.” 

Even at Harrenhal, when Lyanna heard another woman remark that Berena had none of her sister’s good looks, Berena had had to talk her out of violent confrontation by insisting Lya dance the next round with her. Lyanna was never one for embroidery or the high harp, but she did like to dance.

Cersei delicately lifts a dripping bit of peach to her pert mouth. Her lips are red as apples in the autumn. She has the same eyes as her twin, albeit slightly bigger. “Innocence should always be protected. I only worry for you, to be ripped from your home and sent to live with strangers. Casterly Rock can be a precarious place for those… unfamiliar with it.”

It is half a warning, half a threat, Berena thinks. Or all threat. But Cersei’s smile betrays no hostility or spite. If she thinks Berena unworthy of House Lannister, unworthy of the position that was once her own mother’s, she will never voice it aloud. And why would she? Berena is no threat to her, just a silly little girl who has only been as far south as the riverlands.

“I will miss my brother and his lady wife dearly,” Berena has barely touched her lemon cakes or her wine. “But I can hardly wait to see the westerlands and my- my new home. I want to know all there is to know about it, so I can assist my husband in his ruling as much as possible, someday.” 

Tywin Lannister may be forty and two, but Berena would not be surprised to see him live at the very least another twenty years. Ser Jaime may not rule in truth until he is well into his own middle age. It is no matter. She has had her fair share of running a keep here at Winterfell, although Casterly Rock is larger, far more populated, and doubtlessly requires much more intensive supervision. 

“Don’t be silly, Berena,” Cersei laughs and it sounds like a tinkling bell, but it makes Berena shift in her seat as if it were the twang of a bow releasing an arrow. “There will be no need for any of that- my brother will have countless advisors to guide him, even after our dear father has passed on. You will be lady of the Rock in name only- really, you will just be Jaime’s dear little wife.”

She continues to beam benevolently at Berena, and spears another slice of peach. “And I am sure that role will suit you very well, in time. One hardly has to think, of course, only do what is expected of her and bear many, many beautiful little babes. You must be aflutter at the thought- women would kill to be in your position, sweet Berena. Wife to the Young Lion. It’s like something out of an old tale. The lion and the wolf.”

Berena smiles, because there is nothing else she can do. She smiles and knots her fingers into her skirt. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“Yes,” echoes Cersei, green eyes glittering in her heart-shaped face, under her perfect, high golden brows. “Of course, your poor sister was ever the wild wolf-maid. And after what she suffered… I would think you would rather be a tamer beast.” She takes another bite of peach, and then grimaces and wipes at her mouth with a napkin. “A little lap-dog, perhaps. Doesn’t that sound far more pleasant, Berena?” 

She stands without warning, and Berena stands up swiftly as well, feeling the blood rush to her head, and consequently her face. She has no right to speak of Lyanna, queen or not. She has no right to hold the word ‘sister’ in her mouth. She knows nothing of sisters. She knows nothing of how it feels to have your heart cleaved in two. Lyanna was only sixteen. Only Berena’s age.

“Doesn’t it?” Cersei repeats gaily.

“Yes,” says Berena, flushed crimson. 

“I can see you are a modest, meek girl,” the queen adjusts her antlered-tiara ever so slightly. “Jaime will be very fond of you, in time, and you will adore him, I know. Only, do try not to cry much, when you leave here with him and Father. Lannister men never could stand the wailing of women.”

Berena’s wedding gown is probably one of the finest in her familial history. The Stark line is so narrow that the last wedding of their house was Father and Mother’s, and they were first cousins who had been betrothed since childhood. In all of recorded history, no Stark has ever wed a Lannister. 

Northern weddings usually do not feature veils- women often wear flowers in their braids instead. But Berena has been silently forbidden, by Ned and by herself, from wearing blue roses in her brown hair, so she wears bluebells and heather instead. Her hair is braided in a crown around her head. 

Her gown is samite, rather than traditional lambs-wool, and the sleeves are capped around her shoulders. The bodice is a mass of gleaming pearls gifted to them by House Manderly, and the skirt falls long and straight- if only because a fuller skirt would look ridiculous on a figure like hers. It feels odd to be wearing slippers, rather than boots, and she has to take much smaller steps than normal. 

“You look beautiful,” praises Catelyn, in rich Tully blue. 

Berena does not feel beautiful; she feels pretty in a painful way, like a raw scrape or burn, all shiny pink skin and tender to the touch. She wants some dirt beneath her nails or a snarl in her hair to shield her. She wants snow and wind to lash down from the sky, send these southron ladies and knights scurrying inside. But there is no snow today; the sky is clear and blue, and while the wind has a chill to it, it is more refreshing than bitter. 

Ned says nothing, only offers his arm. Berena is not so tall that they are the same height, but they are close enough that it feels companionable, rather than like a child being led to her fate. The sunlight makes her squint; it will not be sundown for hours yet. She would have rather the ceremony take place later in the evening, as if the dusk might offer some sort of protection.

On their way to the godswood, Berena peers curiously at her brother. His face is stiff and pale and lined prematurely with the weight of duty. Poor Ned. Poor her. Duty bound men and crushed women. She cannot remember where she’d heard that saying. She finds it easier to look straight ahead than at the faces in the crowd. She can pretend that she is marrying an Umber or a Karstark or a Glover or a Locke. 

It is not so bad. She must stop acting like a prisoner on her way to her own hanging. She will have few worries beyond what pretty dress to wear and how to arrange her limpid hair. Gods willing, he will spend much of his time at court and leave her in some lavish apartments to write letters home. It is not as if she is marrying some reviled monster. He is handsome and brave- none dispute that. Perhaps he will spend much of his time out hunting or driving off brigands. 

Ser Jaime is wearing a crimson tunic and a golden cloak. A lion roars on his belt. Berena studies his black boots as if they were especially intriguing and tries to imagine him naked, if only to entertain herself. What does he look like without his trappings? Is he less handsome when he sleeps? Does he snore? Does he comb out his shoulder-length hair before a gilded mirror? 

He is no northman, so it sounds queer for him to ask boldly, “Who comes before the god?” He knows nothing of her gods. They are faceless and voiceless and once, not so long ago, they demanded blood and bone in their trees. His gods are encased in stained glass windows and arched ceilings. Hers are in the gnarled roots underneath their feet. Waiting. Watching. 

“Berena of House Stark comes here to be wed. A woman grown and flowered, trueborn and noble, she comes to beg the blessings of the gods.” Ned pauses as if in pain. “Who comes to claim her?”

Jaime is not looking at her or Ned. His green eyes rove the silent, watchful crowd of grim northerners and bemused southroners. Then he finally glances back at her. “Jaime of House Lannister, heir to Casterly Rock. I claim her. Who gives her?” Even this, he manages to make sound trite and dull. Was he expecting beating drums and bonfires? Human sacrifice?

“Eddard of House Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, and her brother.” Ned removes his stiff arm from her own. Berena resists the urge to ball her clammy hands into fists. “Lady Berena, will you take this man?”

“Yes,” she says quickly, before she can think about it further. Lyanna would have snarled, ‘No’, and dared them to force her before the gods. “I take this man.” Ned slowly steps away from her, leaves crunching underfoot. 

The Kingslayer takes her hands in his own, and they both kneel. Berena ought to pray, but she cannot think of something to pray for. A happy marriage should be the obvious answer, but that is a foregone conclusion. A fruitful one, then? She does like children, and she wants to be a mother, although she cannot imagine birthing any right now. Should she pray to make peace with herself? 

She doubts very much that Jaime Lannister is praying to anything or anyone at the moment. His eyes are open and flitting about, from the weirwood to her and back again. She would be pleased were he the slightest bit intimidated or unnerved by the whole thing, but he looks merely curious and bemused. 

And then they are back on their feet, and Ser Jaime removes her maiden’s cloak and replaces it with his own. She can feel the weight of the embroidered lion on her back; there are rubies in its mouth and eyes. Someone started singing; of course there were musicians present, but Berena’s ears were ringing oddly so it was hard to make out the tune.

“No time wasted here, is there?” her husband tells her with a flat smirk, and picks her up. Berena clings to his shoulders and ducks her head as if she were suddenly both shy and mute. Over his shoulder she can see Ned and Catelyn, and just behind them Robert and Cersei, and Lord Tywin. Tywin’s countenance is one of a man who seems well-pleased to have the whole matter over and done with.

“Lost your tongue already?” Jaime prods at her again as they enter the Great Hall. She can already smell the meat and bread. She’s hungry, but also feels as though she might vomit back up anything she eats. “Come now, wife, surely you cannot still be in prayer.”

“No,” says Berena, and then, “put me down.” He sets her down in her seat beside his at the head table, and she stares out across the vast room where she has taken all her meals since childhood. It is full of familiar and unfamiliar faces. 

“Don’t cry,” he says, boredly. “Just think of something pleasant. Like your brother’s present face.” Ned looks thunderous; he cannot make out what Jaime is saying to her, but he obviously suspects it is not words of love and affection.

Berena says nothing. 

“Oh, but you had plenty to say when I first arrived,” he continues, and she cannot discern whether or not it’s still mockery or now simple hostility. “Didn’t you, wife? And now...,” he wastes no time in pouring himself some wine. “Now you rather look as if I just killed a man in front of you. I suppose in a sense I did. I do not think we can expect Lord Stark’s warm congratulations before the bedding ceremony.”

If he wanted to make her flush and squirm, he has not succeeded. Berena continues to stare out at the crowd, before she says, “There will be no bedding ceremony.”

“Oh? Do your people couple under those freakish trees instead? I’d hate to dirty your fine gown.” Still, he does not try to kiss her or grope at her, and he is still not meeting her eyes properly.

Berena lifts her chin too fast; it makes her vision blur a little. She stands suddenly; most people have begun to feast, but there are a few couples spinning in time to the music. “When you tire of your wine, call for me, my lord. I want to dance.” He is well within his rights to command her to sit down, but he does not, and she does not glance back. 

Ned has just sat down, but Robert bounds to his feet, red-faced already from his ale. “Lady Berena, Ser Jaime will not object to me taking your first dance as a married woman?” 

It is not really a question; his big hands are already on her waist. Since his arrival she has sensed that Robert would like to bed her if he could, and likely pretend she is Lyanna while he is at it, and Ned has not forbidden any calls for bedding just out of distaste for Jaime. There are also Robert’s wandering eyes and hands to consider.

“Of course, Your Grace.” 

She dances until she is dizzy, with the king and with Ned, who hates to dance but would do anything for her on this day, and with Lord Tywin, who says nothing and keeps an iron grip on her, as if concerned she might at any moment make a mad dash for the nearest doorway, and just once with her husband, whose feet she step on twice, which she titteringly passes off as nerves, although they both know better.

When she cannot dance any longer because her feet are numb and sore and her face hot, she eats like a bird, picking at this and that while Jaime drinks, although at some point Lord Tywin affixes him with a stare and he does not refill his cup again. She is eager for the whole thing to be over, although the guests will sit and drink and eat long after she and her husband have retired.

She silently urges him to insist on their departure for their bedchamber, but Jaime does not. Perhaps he hopes to force her to the point of suggesting it herself, so she will have only herself to blame. She would rather get it over and done with than sit here fretting all evening. It is not as if she expects him to throw her down and attack her like an animal. It may be unpleasant or merely uncomfortable, but others have survived far worse than a first night with a husband they dislike. 

After what seems like hours, he at last says, “Shall we?” and offers her his hand. Ned is staring at them, and Catelyn has pressed her lips together worriedly. Berena smiles brightly at them and takes Jaime’s hand. They leave the hall in relative peace, before anyone can notice and start up some ribald song or crowd after them, tugging at their clothes.

She has never been in this bedchamber before, but it spacious enough, and the setting sun illuminates the windows. It will be cold enough to warrant a fire soon, and she pokes at the kindling in the hearth while listening to him disrobe. When she has managed to provoke a flame with the flint, she turns back to him. He is sitting naked on the bed. 

Berena’s eyes dart away, then back at him. He smiles, and it does not reach his eyes. She steels herself, and walks over to him. “You’ll have to unlace me.” She’s already taken off that stupid cloak. She expects him to crudely rip through her laces, but instead he takes them out rather neatly. He must have done this before. He’s had hundreds of women, most likely, kingsguard or not. Maybe he can pretend she is someone else, someone he actually cared for.

Her hands come up instinctively to cover her breasts, visible through her smallclothes, once her gown is unlaced, and she turns back to face him. He looks at her not with any sort of wanting or even interest, although he is aroused, she can tell that much, and kisses her. At first it seems passionate, but she realizes quickly it’s more experimental than anything else, as if to test what he can stomach. 

His lips are warm on hers and taste sweet and if she could simply allow herself to forget everything else it could be pleasant- she has kissed boys before, not many, but enough to know that he is a good kisser- but she can’t forget and while she wanted this part of the night over with before now her stomach roils at the thought of going any further and when his hand reaches for one of her breasts she goes stiff and then struggles against him. Her balled up fist collides soundly with the underside of his defined jaw.

Jaime lets go of her with a pained gasping noise, she steps away, tripping over her own gown as she kicks it away and stumbles back in her thin shift, and they stare at each other wildly. He has a hand on his jaw, where she struck him in her panic, and she has backed herself into a corner by the window, heaving with panic, because he certainly has cause to be rough and unkind with her now.

“I don’t want to fuck you either, but you don’t see me hitting anyone,” he coughs out after a moment, massaging his chin.

“Don’t,” she says, trembling, “don’t-,”

“Don’t what?” he challenges, but he does not stride towards her or ball up his own fist. He stays where he is, and then exhales and lies down on the bed. He rolls away from her, facing the door. His hair somehow remains unmussed. “Stay there all night, if you like. I’m not in the mood for a tussle. Or a rape.” 

Berena wraps her wiry arms around herself, sinks down onto her haunches, and does.


	4. Chapter 4

Berena finally clambers into bed beside her husband when she can no longer hear the distant music and rumble of conversation and dancing from the wedding feast. Winterfell is near silent once more, aside from the faint sounds of the guards outside on the walls, and the wind rustling the trees in the godswood. 

If he was going to hurt her in retribution for striking him in her panic, he already would have, and by all appearances he seems to be in a deep sleep. He’s clearly not used to sharing a bed; his long limbs take up most of it, and he’s sprawled out like a child. Berena struggles to recall how old he is. Eighteen. He’s only two years older than her, but he seems much older. 

In sleep, however, his face is relaxed and boyish, his light curls falling across his closed eyes. She studies his expression for a moment before tensely lying down next to him, keeping her arms and legs firmly to herself. It feels ridiculous; the last time she shared a bed with anyone, it was with Lyanna, who always talked in her sleep, and sometimes kicked. 

She struggles to remember the smell of her sister now, the sound of her muffled voice in the dead of night. It’s difficult. If she closes her eyes, perhaps she can pretend her sister is sleeping peacefully beside her now, rather than a man who, if he did not loathe her before, surely does now. Still, she refuses to feel much guilt for hitting him.

After all, he didn’t have to kiss her. Had they simply lain with one another, however cold it might have been, at least she wouldn’t still have it looming over her head. Berena doesn’t dread the act itself; she’s seen plenty of animals mate, and accidentally walked in on Brandon and one of his girls once too. She’s not ignorant to the mechanisms of the whole thing.

It’s just the consummation of her marriage has little to do with enjoyment, be it hers or his, and more to do with producing an heir as soon as possible. Tywin Lannister does not seem a man inclined to take it well if his son’s wife fails to give him a grandson within the first few years of marriage, and she had thought, however doubtfully… Well, many men don’t love their wives, but most men (and women) do love their children. 

If she cannot love her husband, at least she might have a babe to call her own, one who would love her unconditionally simply for being their mother. And Jaime would be pleased, surely. He must have never thought he’d have children, after joining the Kingsguard. In a sense, a healthy child might help bring them together, however tenuously. 

She doesn’t recall falling asleep, but when she wakes up the place beside her in bed is empty. Berena sits up quickly, sensing she is not alone, and finds her husband dressing somewhat languidly at the foot of the bed. He glances back at her, and she stiffens. He seemed more irritated than truly angered last night, but in the morning…

“Sleep well, wife?” he asks sarcastically, and rubs his jaw for good measure. 

“I’m sorry,” lies Berena, trying to look more penitent than sullen. “I was- it was nerves, my lord.” She casts her eyes downward in a show of humility, curling her toes underneath the bed covers. 

Jaime doesn’t appear very convinced of her guilt. “Is that a family trait, then? Do you all act like wild animals when confronted with a kiss? It explains quite a lot, actually. What was it they called your eldest brother? The Wild Wolf?”

Berena looks back up furiously, any trace of false repentance gone. Brandon could have killed him, had they ever met on the battlefield. Brandon could have killed Rhaegar, too. She is sure of it. Her brother was the best swordsman in the North, if not all the seven kingdoms. He would have been a great knight, were they southroners.

“You shouldn’t-,” she begins fiercely, but then remembers who she is speaking to, and bites the inside of her cheek instead.

“I shouldn’t what?” Jaime sneers, but finishes putting on his boots and stands up, running a hand through his hair. “Get dressed. We’re to break our fast with my aunt, and she despises being made to wait.”

Berena resents being told what to like a child, but doesn’t argue with him, getting out of bed and plucking up her robe. When it becomes clear that she’s waiting for him to leave the room before changing, he gives her a sardonic smile and walks out, slamming the door shut behind him with a flourish.

A few minutes later two maids scurry in; she knows both of them. Anika, the darker haired one, looks concerned, her gaze traveling across the rumpled bed to Berena, standing uncomfortably in a corner. “Are you well, milady?”

“Yes,” Berena smiles quickly, in what she hopes is a reassuring fashion. “Of course. I’m very well.”

Lilah, the lighter haired one, hurries over to make the bed, and then pauses. Berena, slipping out of her robe and shift, is confused for a few moments, before she realizes that the stains the maid must have expected to see are absent. Her tongue feels thick. 

Lilah looks to Anika, who says nothing but glances at Berena. Neither girl is much older than her, but they’d never dare say anything aloud about it. She is still a lady of House Stark, after all. Still, the silence is unbearable. 

“We- we were both very tired from the feast, so we just went to sleep,” Berena says, somewhat lamely. “He… he didn’t insist.”

It’s clear neither of them really believes her tale, but neither is going to argue it, either. 

“We won’t say a word about it, milady,” Anika promises after a moment, and Berena is touched by the serving girl’s sincerity. “That’s between you an’ your lord husband now. Only… they don’t know you like we do in the westerlands, milady, if you don’t mind me sayin’, an’ they might…” she trails off, and looks away, flushing.

“Check the sheets, you mean.” Berena finishes for her. To ensure Lord Lannister’s son is doing his duty properly.

Lilah nods minutely.

“Yes,” Berena bites her lower lip. “I- I’m sure it… won’t be a problem.” After all, it’s not as if they can dance around one another forever. Sooner or later they will have to see it through, and no matter her personal distaste for him, she knows she’s perfectly capable of lying back and… Just letting it happen. 

Genna Lannister is Lord Tywin’s younger sister, a plump, full-figured woman with a thick mane of golden hair with only a few threads of white in it, and a gaze nearly identical to her older brother’s. Berena almost likes her, if only because she is not the least bit deferential towards her nephew, and rather behaves as if he is an unruly boy who must be brought to heel. To his credit, Jaime does not seem very annoyed by this, although he is quiet and distant throughout the meal.

He excuses himself towards the end, leaving Berena alone with Genna. Genna is wed to a Frey, whom it is quite clear she she has little respect or fondness for, but she carries herself like every inch the imposing Lannister. Berena rather wishes at least one of them was not so… intense. The woman’s stare is unnerving, although less so than Cersei’s.

“You need to start eating, child,” she says after a few moments, and Berena splutters on her sip of milk. Genna narrows her green eyes. “You’re skin and bones as it is, and it’s a long journey west. If you catch ill and die before ever seeing the rock, my brother will be tremendously displeased.”

Berena stares, and Genna smirks briefly, a smirk that is startlingly like her nephew’s. “You seemed a lively little thing at the feast. I hope Jaime hasn’t scared you off already- he’s been in a foul mood ever since he left court.”

“Perhaps he feels his true calling was there,” Berena mutters.

“Yes,” Genna says a bit sarcastically, “I’m sure he does. And I felt my true calling was to wed better than a son of Walder Frey, but here we are. It’s not a matter of what one feels they deserve, but of making do with what you’ve been granted. I give my brother credit- it’s a fine match, a Stark and a Lannister, petty grudges or not. Jaime could certainly do far worse.”

“Thank you, Lady Genna.” Berena doesn’t know what else to say in response to that. Is the woman trying to hint that she’s on her side? Or merely pleased that Jaime has a worthy wife? At the very least, the older woman isn’t emanating hostility or superiority, just a sense of mild exasperation, as if dealing with a stubborn child. Which, in a way, she is.

“Don’t thank me,” Genna sniffs. “Spend some time with your husband. Jaime’s moody and hotheaded, I’ll grant you that, but he’s a fiercely loyal boy. Man, now, I suppose, after his time serving Aerys.” 

She wrinkles her small nose. “Foul creature that he was. No, it is good to have Jaime home again at the Rock, where he belongs. He was born to rule it, after all,” she adds knowingly. “Tywin has been waiting for this moment for eighteen years. His heir, wedded and bedded with a pretty young wife of a great bloodline.”

“I shall try not to let anyone down, my lady,” Berena takes a tentative bite of her eggs. 

Genna nods approvingly. “That’s the spirit, child. I’m sure you will find the Rock quite hospitable, especially in the summer. It is very beautiful, despite all the grim tales.”

Berena has a hard time picturing the ancestral home of the Lannisters as ‘beautiful’; it’s quite literally carved into the face of a massive stone, which seems more hard and forbidding than anything else. But she is trying to look forward to the travel. She hasn’t had the chance to ride any great distance in years, and while she hasn’t lost her feel for the saddle, journeying across Westeros is quite different from a sedate ride through the wolfswood.

Several days before they are due to depart, she informs Jaime she will not have any need of the wheelhouse. They have taken to avoiding one another’s company as much as possible throughout the day; Jaime seems to spend most of his time with his sister, which makes sense, since who knows when he will see her again, after this, and Berena has the excuse of saying her goodbyes to Ned, Catelyn, and the boys.

“I can ride perfectly well,” she tells him after dinner, while she takes out her hair from its braid. “None of the ladies use them in the North, and I grew up around horses.”

“You’ll slow us down,” he says shortly, without turning to face her as he takes off his undershirt.

Berena frowns, and looks away from the muscles rippling across his bare back. There are a few faint scars, from old battle wounds, no doubt. He has the hardened frame of a much older and more experienced man. Most are still green at eighteen.

“I won’t. I was racing horses with my- with my siblings when I was just a little girl. I learned to ride earlier than most highborn ladies-,”

“And as a highborn lady you will have to ride side saddle and at a pace no faster than a trot,” he says drolly. “Personally, I would like to reach the westerlands sometime before next year.”

She huffs in annoyance. “I have never ridden-,” Well, she can’t exactly proudly proclaim, ‘I have never ridden side saddle’, no matter how true it is. Southroners find it unseemly. Think it… loosens women. The ability to ride fast and hard is not the necessity it is deemed in the harsher north. No one rides side saddle through the harsh roads here. 

He turns to look at her, and then smirks. “Never?”

“Nevermind,” Berena says shortly. “But the wheelhouse is unnecessary. I can keep up with you.”

“I very much doubt that.” He lies down on the bed with a faint groan. “Gods, what do you stuff your mattresses with up here? Stones?”

“I’m not a child to be coddled and condescended to.” The words are out before she can stop them. She should not be so disagreeable with him, not when they haven’t even been wed a week and the marriage remains unconsummated. 

But he is so infuriating, and so sneering, that it grows harder and harder to hold her tongue. Besides, he is her husband, not her… not her master. Ned would never speak to Catelyn in such a tone. He may be her lord, but he gives her the respect she is due as his lady wife.

She stands up indignantly, staring at him. He stares back, brow furrowed as if she’s just started speaking in another language. “No,” he says slowly, “what you are is an extremely taxing little burden.”

“A burden-,”

“Yes,” he snaps, without so much as lifting his head up from his pillow, “a burden. If you had any sense in your empty little head, you’d hold your tongue unless spoken to, and let me put a son in your belly as soon as possible so we can both get on with our lives.”

In that moment, Berena is not afraid of what else he may say or do to her. She only wants to smash that self-satisfied look he has, as if he’s said his piece and now expects her to meekly beg his pardon and undress so he can sullenly fuck her. 

“I may be a burden, but least I still have my honor,” she snaps viciously, “which is more than you can say, Kingslayer.”

He does sit bolt upright at that, and Berena stills, although she refuses to cower or try to hurriedly take back her words. “Come here,” he says coldly, and he sounds enough like his father that she gets an involuntary chill on the back of her neck.

She doesn’t move. 

“I told you to come here, wife,” he repeats himself, unblinking, and Berena steps forward to the edge of the bed, trying to hide her shaking. If he does strike her, it had better not be on the face, because Ned will kill him on the spot when he sees it before they depart, honor or no honor. 

He grabs her roughly by the arm and pulls her down onto the bed beside him, and she looks away from him and at the wall instead, trying not to think about it too much. She can’t let him see how frightened she is. He’s just a man, not a monster. She refuses to let him dictate her own fear. 

But he doesn’t do anything but keep his hard grip on her arm, and say in a low voice, directly into her ear. “I was there when they killed your father and brother. The Old Wolf went without a sound, but your brother screamed and swore like a beast straight out of the seven hells. Retching and clawing at his own throat. Trying to reach that sword of his.”

Berena involuntarily gives a silent sob and feels her eyes well, but she cannot cry, she can’t, he wants her to, if she breaks down into hysterics, he wins-

“That’s where their honor got them,” the Kingslayer tells her softly. “Cooked and strangled. Do you know how many men watched them die? And not a single sound. I remember. It wasn’t so long ago. So why don’t you think about that, the next time you wish to speak to me of honor.”

She shudders but refuses to turn and face him. After another moment, he lets go of her, and she moves to the very edge of the bed, still crying noiselessly. She can feel him just out of her line of sight, and it seems like he’s about to say something else, or about to touch her, because he appears to hesitate, but then he just lies down again. While she struggles to control her tears, wiping swiftly at her eyes with the back of one hand, he exhales.

“I’m sorry, wife.” He almost does sound regretful, but he can’t be. He wanted to hurt her without laying hands on her. That’s why he told her that. If he’d slapped her round the face or screamed at her she’d have been able to secure the higher ground with a stiff upper lip and a proud bearing, but with that, there’s no chance of her winning. 

“You’re not,” she hisses.

Jaime says nothing in return.


	5. Chapter 5

Berena is not on speaking terms with her husband the morning of her departure from the Winterfell, but fortunately this does not pose much of a problem, since they are rarely alone. She feels vaguely ill watching the carts and wagons being loaded up in the courtyard, and makes her way through the sea of red and gold towards the training yard, where she finds Ned.

“Playing at swords again?” she teases, watching him hack furiously at a dummy stuffed with straw. He’s probably pretending said straw is the Kingslayer’s blonde hair. 

Ned sheathes Ice, heaving, and turns to her. Berena sighs at his frown. “Don’t, brother, you’ll make me cry.” Some part of her may feel vindicated that he’s so distressed by her departure, but she doesn’t want to leave him looking like this. She can’t part on poor terms- not again. This time she needs to say a proper goodbye.

“I think I’ve made you cry often enough, in months past,” he mutters.

“Mayhaps,” Berena nods. “But what’s done is done, Ned. And I would not have you torturing yourself over it any longer.”

“I was supposed to protect you,” he says, grey eyes pained. Her and Ned have the same eyes; alternatively misty and steely, depending on their moods. They both know he is not just speaking to Lyanna, right now.

“Don’t be silly. I won’t come to any harm.” 

But he has lost a sister before and found her bleeding out in the birthing bed, and she knows he secretly fears the same for her; that she will be miserable, and hate him, and her husband, and that Casterly Rock and the Lannisters will slowly but surely extinguish all her light and gaiety until there is nothing left. 

“There are different sorts of harm,” Ned tells her. 

I know that better than you do, Berena wants to tell him, but she cannot. As far as Ned knows, her fair husband has already taken her maidenhead. As far as Ned knows, she is forever chained to a man that belongs on the Wall or in the ground. 

And she could lie to him and assure him that she loves her husband, that his looks and charm have swept her away, that she is delighted to see the beginning of her life as Lady Lannister, not just the little Stark girl, but… She never could lie like that to the ones she loves, and she loves Ned more than anyone else in this world, presently. 

“He is…,” The Kingslayer has not been kind, but he has not been strictly cruel either. It is difficult to define it. He has been cruel to her, but not in the expected ways. He has not violated or beaten her, but he has made her feel small, and worthless, and weak. 

But there have been inadvertent kindnesses too. In the end, he has not ordered her to the wheelhouse with his aunt and cousins. “He doesn’t mistreat me,” she says at last. “I’m sure that in time, things will be easier for everyone.”

“I would have rather you had a man who loved you, Beri,” Ned puts his hand on her shoulder. 

“Love is for stories,” she smiles tightly. “Come now, you did not love Cat when you wed her, either, but now you are… well, you are close, aren’t you?”

Her brother nods stiffly. “She’s a good wife, and a strong woman. She has given me happiness I don’t deserve.”

“But you do,” Berena catches up his other hand in her own, squeezing his gloved fingers. “Of course you do, everyone- everyone deserves to be happy, don’t they? All your life you have put others first, Ned. You deserve your just rewards.”

He breaks away from her, frustrated, exhaling tiredly. “And what about you? You’re just a… you’re only sixteen, Berena. You have your whole life to live, and I would… I wish more than anything that I could give you the same fate as myself.”

“I will be happy. I can make my own happiness, Ned. I don’t need a… a northern husband for that. I will be happy knowing you and Catelyn and the boys are safe and at peace.”

He presses his thin lips together, and Berena hugs him swiftly, the way she hasn’t since she was still an unflowered girl. “Don’t worry about me. Everything will be alright, you’ll see.”

“If he ever hurts you,” he murmurs back, breath stirring a few locks of her hair, “you need only send a raven, and I will raise every banner in the North to take you back.”

Her eyes well up as she steps back. “I know.”

Ned swallows hard, and then nods towards the stables. “I have a belated wedding gift for you.”

Said gift is a fine chestnut stallion with clever dark eyes and a gleaming coat. Berena has never had a horse of her own before, and runs her hand down its neck in delight before turning to grin at Ned. “What’s his name?”

“Torrhen,” he replies with a slight smile of his own. “He’s well trained, and fast as the wind.” He pauses. “From the same sire as Artos.”

He is gifting her Lyanna’s steed’s younger brother. Berena rests her head momentarily against the contented animal, listening to its breathing. “Thank you, Ned.”

She goes down to the crypts to gaze upon the marbles faces of her family one last time. Father is cold but undaunted, a hand on his sword. She squeezes his stone hand briefly, recalling the way he’d smooth back her hair and tell her to be good while he was gone. “I will try to make you proud.” He stares past her into the gloom of the cavern, unflinchingly.

Brandon’s wild grin is almost too true to life. He looks like a man as this statue, hair long and beard thick, but his grin is boyish, reckless, unknowing. Berena cranes her neck to look up at him, and tries to recall the echoes of his shouts and japes. He would carry her on his back when she was small, and dance with her at every feast, while Ned and Lya laughed and laughed. “Thank you,” she says simply.

Lyanna is the only female statue in the crypts at all. She is slender and girlish, her smile slightly mysterious, as if she is secretly amused by something. Lya was seldom shy, but she kept her wildest thoughts and fancies to herself. If she had… if she had shared them, Berena still believes she could have talked her out of it. Or somehow stopped it. She fingers the edge of her sister’s smooth, hard gown. They should have carved her in breeches and a tunic, a sword in hand.

She feels tempted to make some tart remark- after all, if not for Lyanna, she wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place, would she? But she is older than Lyanna now. Her sister was a child, a wide-eyed girl who still saw a world that was just, and kind, and noble. What can she say to that? Lyanna always did what she thought was right. And now, after Lya’s short life has ended, Berena exists in perpetual grey, instead of her sister’s black and white.

“Goodbye, Lya,” she whispers, and forces herself to leave her sister behind.

Catelyn looks slightly tearful to see her go, embracing Berena as warmly as if she were her blood sister, and Ned maintains a stoic lord’s face, although he does kiss her brow. Little Robb and Jon are more confused than anything else, just toddling babes, too young to understand that Aunt Beri is leaving. When she sees them again they will be little boys, running and playing and shouting, too big to hold in her arms and too quick to be caught up in a hug.

Berena makes faces at them and pokes Robb’s little nose before mounting Torrhen with Ned’s assistance. Her husband’s smile does not reach his eyes, but even so, she can sense some relief from him as they ride out of Winterfell’s ancient walls. Berena longs to look back at the gates before they close, but does not. If she looks back, she will shatter in half.

The weather is pleasant and the ride south along the kingsroad is smooth. Passing farmers and peasants cast dark looks at the Lannister banners fluttering in the breeze, but they make good time, reaching the boggy Neck before the week is out. Were they travelling under the Stark sigil, Berena knows Greywater Watch would be made available for them to stay, but Howland Reed will never allow Tywin Lannister or his men to so much as glimpse his floating home.

She misses Howland, who she has not seen since before the war. She would not have minded being his wife; his short and slim frame did not bother her, nor his quiet, watchful ways. But Ned says he has taken a wife of his people, and they are happy. It is probably better that way; the crannogmen keep to themselves, and by doing so avoid much of the rest of the realms’ strife and wars. 

Instead they are forced to make camp in the ruins of Moat Cailin, which sets the Lannister men on edge and gives Berena an odd sense of peace; she doesn’t fear the bog or the sounds of the birds and lizard lions. She chats by the fire with a few page boys, scaring them with tales of dead northron kings and the children of the forest, stealing away babes. As the boys shift and giggle uncomfortably, crowding around her, she feels eyes on the back of her neck.

The Kingslayer is watching silently nearby, and after a few minutes Berena excuses herself from the gaggle of lads, patting one especially timid boy on the shoulder, and approaches her husband. “My lord.” Berena has been giving him a thousand small wounds of cold courtesy ever since he used Father and Brandon’s deaths against her. She does not contradict or argue with him, but she does not attempt to make conversation, either. 

He’s not outwardly hostile at the moment. “You should get some rest. We’ll be riding at daybreak tomorrow. My lord father doesn’t wish to spend any time longer than necessary in this region.”

Berena nods and follows him over to their shared tent, and glances at him sidelong when he pauses outside. She has been waiting for him to finally exercise his rights for a fortnight now. He still has not made any further attempts to touch her. He stiffens slightly, as if he’s heard her silent question, and then says crudely, “Don’t worry so, wife. I’d rather have a woman in my own keep than in some ramshackle inn or on the wet ground.”

“As you say, my lord,” Berena says mildly, without looking at him, and walks inside the tent, struggling not to let her relief show. He is telling her, in so many words, that he will not press the issue until they arrive at Casterly Rock. Perhaps he is merely hoping to have fostered some sense of amiableness, if nothing else, by then, or perhaps he fears she will scream and carry on if he tries anything while they are camped out here. 

Once free of the Neck, they approach the Twins and Frey territory, and spend just two days as the guests of Lord Walder Frey, who Lord Tywin seems to regard as little more than a jumped up, shriveled husk of a man. Berena is inclined to agree with them, although she is biased, with a Tully for a good sister. Walder’s sons are even less hospitable, although they are starved for women, despite their wealth of sisters, wives, nieces, and daughters, and she spends as little time as possible in the feasting halls.

Her husband squired with fleshy, stout Merrett Frey at Crakehall, and to the Kingslayer’s credit, Merrett need only leer at her twice as she walks by before her husband takes the other man sharply by the arm and tells him something in a quiet voice, smiling broadly all the while, that makes Merrett Frey pale like a green boy at his first sight of blood.

Berena smiles cheerily at Merrett after that, who scowls and averts his eyes, and is tempted enough, despite her continued grudge, to ask her husband what exactly he said to the other man later that night. 

“Merrett came to Crakehall a swaggering, fat bully,” he says with the faintest hint of a smirk, “and left it a snivelling, fat coward. I reminded him of the last time I beat him into the dirt, and he was bigger than me, then, and not twice as wide and a head shorter, as he is now.”

“Thank you,” says Berena, although it is his duty to defend her, but there are plenty of men like Emmon Frey, who are incapable of defending themselves, nevermind their wives or children.

He looks at her oddly, as if caught off guard by her show of gratitude, however shallow, and doesn’t say anything else. 

She is as glad as anyone else to leave the Twins and the Freys behind. They stop at the ruins of Oldstones, where they say Prince Duncan met witchy Jenny, who he found walking barefoot through the reeds, singing to herself as she weaved flowers in her hair, and whom he brought back to court to dress in silk and gems and to fill the halls of the Red Keep with her queer songs and strange ways. 

All Berena finds at Oldstones are fireflies, which she and Lyanna would dart about and catch in the godswood as little girls, their laughter wafting off into the summer nights. She catches one there, and holds it between her two hands, standing on an low, crumbled stone wall, watching the darkness settle over the horizon.

To her surprise, her husband seeks her out. His eyes are a much darker shade of green in the twilight. “You look like a witch,” he says; her hair is coming loose of its braid, and her dress is splattered with mud from her riding. 

If I was a witch, I’d put a curse on you, thinks Berena, childishly, she knows. She lets the firefly go; it drifts away, glowing lazily. 

“These are not so common in the westerlands,” he looks out at the bobbing lights, “but I would catch them with my sister out on the plains whenever we traveled with our father.” He has never even referenced Cersei in front of her before. Has her silence somehow coaxed him into being more open with her, or has he just ceased to care? 

Berena opens her mouth to say something, but can think of nothing. She feels somehow that he will take offense to Cersei’s name in her mouth, the same way she did to Father and Brandon’s in his. And she is not so spiteful as he, to use his own family against him. She’s determined of that, at least. She will never sink to his level, or will they be going in scornful circles for years to come, constantly dragging each other down into the muck.

“I apologize,” and she’s shocked to even hear those words come out of his mouth, “for the way I… I should not have said what I said to you. They were brave men. They deserved to die with… with honor.”

“I knowingly provoked you,” she says quietly. “You were well within your rights to reprimand me, my lord.”

They both know it was not a reprimand, and he is only apologizing for reducing her to the point of helpless tears, not the rest of it, but it is still a start. Of sorts.

“Don’t call me that.” He sounds exasperated. “I- call me Jaime.” He is gritting the words out, but he does seem to mean it.

Berena glances warily at his shadowed face, wondering how short his temper is tonight. “Then don’t call me wife. My name is Berena.”

He uses ‘wife’ to distance her, she knows that by now. If she is only ‘wife’ then she is not a real person, with feelings and wants, but an ugly, unwieldy possession he’s been tasked with taking care of. If she is just his silly, stupid little wife, he does not have to think when he speaks to her, or bother to have discussions with her. 

She thinks of what Cersei told her. Did she tell him similarly? That Berena would only ever be a burden on him, something to be played with on occasion and then tossed aside in frustration? A panting little lapdog, to be fed treats and pet when she rolled over and begged for it?

Or maybe he came to the conclusion on his own. Maybe he has no desire for a wife, period, and resents the idea of marriage as a whole. He would not the the first heir to wish he had been born second or third. Even Brandon seemed to wish he could switch places with Ned, who idolized him, on occasion. Father’s expectations were ever severe, although nothing compared to Tywin Lannister’s.

“Berena,” he says, as if considering the weight of the word. “Alright. Let’s use names from now on, and not speak anymore of our families.”

“That may be difficult,” she snorts, “seeing as I am surrounded at all times by members of yours.”

Jaime laughs at that, not long or hard but it is a genuine sound of amusement, and she feels oddly proud to have gotten that out of him. She can make her husband laugh, honorless bastard that he is. She can do that much. She hops nimbly down from the wall, and promptly slips in the dewy grass; he grabs her arms to steady her. Berena chances a smile that is nearly genuine, and while he doesn’t quite smile back, he doesn’t scowl or sneer either.


	6. Chapter 6

Berena sees Casterly Rock for the first time just over two months after leaving the North behind. She had always pictured it as a castle set into the face of a barren mountain, cold and grim and wracked by storms from the nearby sea. But it isn’t a castle on a mountain; it is a castle carved out of a rock, and from a distance she can only make out three towers. The rest blended into the rock face. 

To find a way to breach its defenses, an approaching army would have to enter into the long shadow it casts across the plains. She has always thought of Winterfell, which has never fallen to an enemy, in thousands of years, as impenetrable, but the Rock gives a whole new meaning to the word. Winterfell has walls. Men could scale walls. The Rock has jagged stone, which no man, especially one in armor, could ever hope to climb.

Below the massive rock, she can barely make out the sprawling village clustered in its shadow, and in the distance, the vague outline of Lannisport and its busy harbor. The only city Berena has ever set foot in is White Harbor, and that was only a few times over the course of her childhood. Lannisport has to be at least twice its size. 

“They say it’s thrice as tall as your Wall,” Jaime tells her, reining up beside her. He’s barely broken a sweat today; Berena has stuck true to her promise that she can ride as well as any man, but she’s exhausted and shaky after hours spent on horseback, simultaneously relieved and consumed with dread to see the Rock so near. 

“It must be,” she struggles to control her stunned expression. “It’s incredible.” It is; glowing golden in the noon sun high in the sky overhead. The heat is incredible as well; she has never been in a climate this warm before. The westerlands may not be as hot in the summer as the fertile Reach, but Berena has never felt the sun pounding on her back and head like this before.

She will need an entirely new wardrobe of gowns, that much is clear- even in the grips of winter, it will be nothing like the North. Their last host was House Lefford of Golden Tooth, and the women there wore thin, sleeveless gowns with deep necklines, and piled their hair in elaborate fashions atop their heads, rather than wearing it flowing down their backs or braided. The servants were deeply tanned by the sun, not weathered by the cold. And the gardens, although rocky, contained flowers and trees she had never seen before in her life.

They reach the Lion’s Mouth, the massive cavern entrance to the Rock, by evening. At the sight of Lord Tywin on horseback the waiting men jump into action to make way for the horses and wagon train, shouting commands over the crashing of waves against the docks. Berena looks around wildly as Jaime helps her dismount and then greets a nearby knight, until Genna takes her by the elbow.

“Come along then, child, you’re dead on your feet.” Her tone makes it clear that she thinks Berena is a foolish, stubborn girl for scorning the wheelhouse in favor of riding ahead with the men, and Berena hurries after her, boots clicking against the stone floor. 

Her husband’s aunt leads her up a flight of stairs, and through several more cavernous rooms and dim halls before they climb another few flights of stairs, leaving the dungeons and storerooms behind and reaching the main levels of the castle. Everywhere Berena looks, gold glints by the freshly lit torches. Even the servants and guards seem well-dressed; it is clear that every room and hall is kept in immaculate condition, at all times.

Genna introduces her to the maester, a brown haired, clean shaven man in his early thirties known as Creylen, and to the elderly, white-bearded septon, Cyril, as well as the steward, thin and fair haired Lorent Lantell, whose family are very distant Lannister relations. The cook is a stout, dark-haired, suntanned woman named Thea, and the head maid is a pinch-faced young woman named Silla. 

“On the morrow, you may choose your personal handmaid,” Genna tells her airily, waving a hand. “And meet my brother Kevan and his lady wife. Silla will show you to your chambers.”

“Thank you,” Berena calls after her, and then glances at Silla, who nods stiffly and leads her up two flights of stone steps and then into a winding tower stairwell. Berena is breathing heavily by the time they reach the top; Silla, who has likely spent years running up and down these stairs, is barely affected. 

“I’ll send in girls to help you undress and bathe,” she says, showing Berena into her chambers. At Winterfell Berena had the bedchamber of a child; there was a bed, a small desk and chair, her wardrobe, and not much else. These are a lady’s room, with a bedchamber, a privy, a sitting area to entertain guests, and a set of doors painted with scalloping gold flowers leading out onto a balcony high enough to make Berena dizzy just by looking at it.

She hasn’t had the chance to bathe in a tub of hot water since Golden Tooth, so Berena relishes the chance for a proper bath, rather than just using a wet rag dunked in a nearby stream or pool. Her hair is a knotted mess that takes forever to sort out, but the girl attending her has nimble fingers. Afterwards, she is left alone to sit gingerly on her new bed, and to stare at the door leading into the lord’s chambers next door. 

After an hour, she gathers up her nerve and knocks quietly on the door. There’s silence for a few moments, before she hears her husband bid her enter. Jaime has shed his armor and leathers and must have recently bathed as well; his curls are wet and flattened against his head. Berena regards him curiously from the doorway; just the sight of him bare-chested no longer reduces her to nervous flushing, but it is still odd. They are near three months wed now, and have only seen one another nude a few times. 

“Are your rooms to your liking?” he asks, not quite seriously- of course she’s not going to say ‘no’. They are finer rooms than she has ever set foot in, from the plush rugs to the gleaming mantle to the brilliantly dyed tapestries and silks on the walls. 

“Yes,” Berena bobs her head, feeling her still damp hair with one hand. “They’re beautiful. It’s all- it’s all very beautiful.” 

Beautiful and strange and utterly foreign. She doesn’t know this place, or these people, and the castle is so large and the people so numerous that she doesn’t even know where to begin. She could have navigated Winterfell blind. She knew every nook, every cranny from a childhood spent exploring its many secrets with her siblings. 

She can hardly spend her days running around the Rock like a curious child now that she is a woman wed. She will have to be content with ever so slowly familiarizing herself with it, mindful all the while that while she may be it’s lady now, Lord Tywin still commands the entire household as lord.

“You’re very beautiful as well,” he tells her, and smiles- he always smiles like that when he lies.

The expression she makes does make him laugh, though. 

“You needn’t... “ she struggles to find the words. She would just rather he be honest with her, in all things, but she has learned enough of Jaime Lannister by now to know that lies, be they sweet or vicious, come as easy to him as breathing. If not easier.

“Sweeten you up?” he mocks, leaning back onto the bed. “Alright. I won’t. Come here and let me fuck you, woman.”

“Jaime,” she snaps, but she is not truly angry with him, because his eyes, while mocking, are not entirely cutting at the moment. 

He sobers, enough. “I’ve no desire to be a rapist, Berena.”

“You’re not- you’re my husband,” she reddens. “That’s… it’s only proper, we have to consummate it-,”

“Are you willing?” His question takes her aback.

“Of course I am, I have never-,” She has never tried to withhold affection from him, only she has never initiated, either. They have kissed but once, and one doesn’t make an heir from timid kisses alone. 

“Being willing to bear a Lannister child and willing to lay with me are rather different things.”

“One begets the other, does it not?” she demands, taking a step forward.

“I should hope so,” he smirks.

“I’ve kissed boys before,” she says, almost challengingly.

“I could tell. Were you practicing with a few squires on the way here?”

“Were you?” she retorts fiercely, and he snorts, rather than rousing in anger. But he does not get out of the bed, and she does not draw any closer.

“Would you like to kiss me again-,” he begins to ask drolly, just as she blurts out, “Put out the light.”

He glances to the torches from her and back again, and then gets up and puts them out. In the sudden darkness of the room, only illuminated by the faint glow of the fire, she stumbles closer and feels his hands on her back. 

“Is it easier for you, like this?” he asks in a low voice, and she says nothing, finding the outline of his face with her hands instead. It is, in a sense, but she asked him to extinguish the light more-so for his benefit than hers. She has seen the way he looks slightly to the left in moments like this- he is trying to pretend she is someone else. 

When his lips crash against her, she knows she is right. In the dark, she is not his unwanted wife, who he may trade barbs and occasional laughter with but nothing more. In the dark, she can be whoever he pleases, and the same goes for her. It is simpler to just feel him, his body against hers, than to see his face clearly defined and have to think about who he is and what he’s done and where they are all the while. 

They make their way over to the bed, still trading rough kisses, as he hitches up her shift and pulls it over her head, and she scrabbles at his britches, bolder in the dark than she ever would have been in the light. It is not an unpleasant experience, although she does tense horribly when he enters her. 

It is not so bad after that, although he stops kissing her then, and she lies back, breathing shallowly through her nose, digging her fingers into the mattress, and trying not to think of much else beside the fact that she is a woman now. Or something approaching it. When he’s done, he does not lie down beside her, but rather rolls off the bed and stalks away as if suddenly infuriated. As if tricked. She knows better than to call after him, and closes her eyes, exhausted.

And then it is suddenly morning, and she wakes again to an empty bed. She is slightly sore, but there are no marks on her, and she is not wracked with sobs for her lost maidenhead, the way they sometimes tell it in stories, as if a woman is unmade by sex, and a man made by it. She really doesn’t feel much different at all, only tired.

After that it as if a month of thawing has been undone overnight; he is terse and short with her over breakfast, and Berena is left to wonder whether he did not find her enthusiastic enough or if he felt she asserted herself too much, but she is too indignant herself to care. He is obviously angry with himself about something, and it’s not her job to pry it from him like a toy from a shrieking child. Let him stew. 

“Would you rather we have left the light on?” she can’t resist asking when he stands up to go, dishes rattling, and the look he gives her is near enough to curdle milk.

“The next time, you should return to your own room, or I will put you there myself,” he snaps, and stalks out. Berena takes a rebellious bite of her bacon and watches him leave, glaring.


	7. Chapter 7

Berena is introduced to the remainder of her husband’s aunts and uncles after breaking her fast the next day. Ser Kevan is a good deal older (and more portly) than his thin, nervous young wife, Dorna, who has slightly frizzy hair the color of straw and an almost bird-like quality to her sharp nose and small mouth, but the couple seems genuinely fond of one another, and are both welcoming to Berena, inquiring after her journey and her brother. 

Ser Tygett is a far fiercer looking man, big and brawny with old battle scars marring his tanned face, but while he greets Berena gruffly and seems for the most part disinterested in family matters, he strikes her as a good deal less intimidating than his eldest brother. 

His wife, Darlessa, is a pretty young woman only a few years older than Berena, with coppery ringlets, wide hazel eyes, and delicate, fine-boned features, in contrast to her husband’s harsh looks. The couple does not share the affection that Kevan and Dorna do, but they don’t seem displeased with one another, either.

And then there is Ser Gerion, who looks so similar to Jaime that for a moment Berena is unsettled, although Gerion is leaner and has a longer face than his nephew, even if they are both clean shaven and wear their blond curls long. He is a good deal more amiable than his nephew as well, making japes to put Berena at ease and kind to the servants. 

All in all, Berena knows it could have been far worse; they could have been cold, unwelcoming, or simply distant with her, but for all intents and purposes, she does not find the Lannisters as a whole cold or cruel or unbearably snobbish. They are powerful, yes, but they are also a family, with their own worries and strife, just like her own. Still, she knows better than to ask after Jaime’s younger brother.

Dorna takes her afterwards to select a handmaiden, her fretful little son, Lancel, on her hip. Berena is oddly pleased to see a toddler again, after being away from Robb and Jon, and teases at the boy’s golden curls as she follows after Dorna, who is the most talkative Lannister she has ever encountered, although the woman is a Swyft by birth.

“You will like it here, I believe,” Dorna says. “I was- unsure as well, when I first came to the Rock, but it quickly became my home. As did Kevan,” she smiles fondly, and were Berena a bitter girl, it would be almost sickening. She has heard tell from Genna that Kevan married for love, and it is easy enough to believe, listening to Dorna, whose admiration and respect for her husband saturate every word.

Silla has a few girls to show her, all of whom curtsey deeply when Berena enters the room. After a brief conversation with each, she selects the girl closest in age to herself, although she knows a maid is not a friend, but- well, a maid is not a Lannister, bound in familial loyalty to Lord Tywin, and perhaps that matters more. 

Her maid’s name is Agnese; she is sixteen, the same age as Berena, and short, bordering on plump, with dark brown curls bound back under a linen cap and a clean, kindly face. Her eyes are blue and there is something wise-beyond-her-years about them, as if Berena were the child and she the woman grown. That would irk some ladies, but Berena, still longing for the older sister she lost, is drawn to it immediately. 

Agnese seems surprised when Berena practically chats her ear off while changing or bathing or having her hair brushed, but then seems to warm to it, and speaks a bit more freely than most servants might about her own life- she is the eldest of four girls, all servants at the Rock, and has pledged to wed the butcher’s apprentice, Gerrit. 

“Do you know him well, your Gerrit?” Berena asks, while being measured for new gowns. Agnese is staring down the wary tailor somewhat protectively, but glances up at Berena to smile bemusedly.

“Of course, milady. We’ve known each other since we were but lil ones, me an’ him, runnin’ round the kitchens and storerooms. But it was still a surprise when he asked my da- my father,” she corrects herself, flushing pink. “I’m happy, though. He’s a good man, Gerry. Quiet, but gentle.”

Berena thinks about that. Father and Mother practically grew up together as well, being first cousins. They were not officially betrothed until Father was fifteen and Mother twelve, but they always knew they would someday wed. That’s the way Brandon always told, it anyways, and as much as a warrior as he was, her brother still managed to make it sound romantic. 

But on the other hand, perhaps not knowing is better. Father and Mother were very similar, according to Ned- quiet and perhaps a bit stiff people, but well-intentioned and honorable. If they hadn’t been, though, they might have been miserable, dreading their approaching marriage for years and years. At least she only had one year to worry about Jaime. 

Jaime, who is- well, Jaime has been distant again since the bedding. Not as bad as he was on the road, but they rarely take their meals together, and Berena is not used to eating alone or with Kevan and Dorna, who are gracious but whom she barely knows. Genna says that within the next month or so lords will send their daughters to be her ladies in waiting, but Berena finds it difficult to look forward to being surrounded by even more westerners.

“I am surprised your brother did not send his sister with ladies of her own from the North,” Genna remarks reprovingly a few weeks after their arrival at the Rock. Berena is picking at her needlework; she was always better at it than Lya, but she has no real passion for it, either. She would much rather go out riding, but she will need an escort and is unfamiliar with the terrain.

“I- he did offer to summon unwed ladies from his bannermen,” Berena frowns as she pricks herself with the needle, and nearly sucks her stinging thumb before lowering it embarrassedly, since Genna is still watching her, “but I refused, I… Those girls, their fathers and brothers were off to war just a year ago, and some of them did not return, and it… it seemed cruel, to separate families once more. And to go from the North to the westerlands… that is no easy distance.”

“They could have made fine marriages here,” Genna notes, with a slight frown, but her eyes are a bit more understanding.

“They could have,” Berena agrees. “But the North is… my father was an exception, in wanting to arrange southron marriages for his… for his children. Most of the lords would rather see their daughters wed to their fellow northmen, who follow the- the old gods, as you call them. They do not have much faith in knights.”

There is a godswood at Casterly Rock, but Berena has yet to enter it- she only stood from a higher balcony and gazed down on the little garden and the small weirwood, little more than a sapling compared to the one in Winterfell. If the gods lived in its roots, their voices were small and muffled. It would have seemed almost a betrayal to set foot in, like a cruel mockery of what it should be. Eventually, she would have to tend to it, but as of right now… 

“But your children will follow the Faith of the Seven, of course,” Genna says, and it is not a question.

Berena tenses but does not argue with her. Ned intends to bring Robb up to honor both the northern and southron gods, out of respect for the Stark ways and Catelyn’s faith, but- she is not so sure Jaime will afford her the same luxury. He is far from devout- truth be told, she does not think he believes in any gods at all, but to permit his wife to educate his children in ‘savage northern ways’ might be seen as a concession, a weakness.

And with Tywin Lannister for a father, she can see that he was raised to loathe weakness above all else.

Her moonblood comes, although Jaime does not ask after it. She doesn’t know what to think. She had assumed he’d want to get a child on her, even if he doesn’t particularly like her or enjoy her company, but he seems rather disinterested as a whole, in no rush to attempt to impregnate her again. She refuses to push the matter, not wanting to come across as desperate, and truthfully- well, she is just sixteen, and with her narrow hips and slender frame… death in the birthing bed seems like a rather abrupt fate, when her wedded life has only just begun.

The need to speak of it with someone- anyone- gnaws at her, but while she does not mind Genna or Dorna or even Darlessa, who is somewhat vain and vapid but seems pleasant enough- she does not trust them, either. If word of her and Jaime’s… troubles gets back to Lord Tywin, it would… well, it would not end well for her, she is sure of that. Jaime is his golden boy, his treasured heir. Any faults in the marriage must therefore lie with her, the unworthy Stark girl.

So while stepping into her nightly bath, she asks Agnese, somewhat hesitantly, “If… if a man was displeased after…,” she winces at the heat of the water, “after… bedding a woman, and there were no… if everything… worked as it should, and the woman was willing, but he still seemed… upset, then why… do you know why that might be?”

She sounds like a child, and cringes to herself as she works the soap in hair up to a lather. Agnese is silent for a long moment, before she sets down the blankets in her arms on the bed, and crouches down beside the tub. Berena glances over at her, red from both the hot water and her mortification. 

“You must remember, milady, that you an’ he are but strangers,” Agnese says, clearly choosing her words carefully, and Berena does not blame her- servants are caught in an uncomfortable trap, forced to bear witness to all the personal problems of their masters and mistresses but unable to speak without fear of censure or punishment. 

“It is… why, anyone would be ill at ease, in the beginnin’, being so… close with someone they do not know. You must… take it as a compliment of sorts, milady that he… mayhaps he just wishes to know you better.”

“But he doesn’t wish to know me at all,” Berena bursts out. “He- he doesn’t even like me. I irritate him, he- he called me a burden,” and there is a lump in her throat, which is ridiculous, because she has not cried about that in over a month now, and she is not going to start again.

Agnese takes over washing her hair, soothing circles into her scalp. “Don’t cry, milady. It will be better as time goes on, I promise you. Not all marriages have happy starts, or happy ends, but plenty have happy middles. In time, you’ll grow more used to one another, or…,” she hesitates, “or at least, you will have the children, someday. Some men… well, some men were just not made for marriage.”

“You mean he has a mistress?” Berena demands, turning around so fast that the water sloshes up the sides of the tub. She wraps her arms tightly around her breasts. “I- it would explain some things, would it not? I feel as though he wishes I were someone else.”

“Ser Jaime has no mistress,” Agnese shakes her head firmly. “You are my master before he is, milady, an' he has no kept woman. Lord Tywin would never permit it in the castle, and in Lannisport… well, the only Lannister man who has a woman in Lannisport is Ser Gerion.” Her blue eyes widen. “But don’t ever repeat that, milady, it- Lord Tywin would have my tongue for it.”

“Ser Gerion has a mistress?” Berena supposes it does not really count as a mistress, since Gerion is unmarried, but…

“A common woman, a seamstress,” Agnese admits. “I hear she’s a beauty indeed, though they say he took her first to thumb his nose at his brother. But he only sees her by night- no Lannister man could be so public with a woman not his wife, not after Lord Tytos. After he died, Lord Tywin had his father’s mistress walk naked through the streets of Lannisport, for her impudence- they say he caught her wearin' the Lady Jeyne’s jewels.”

“But Jaime has no other woman.” Berena doesn’t know why she’s so relieved by this. It’s not as if she claims any wifely possessiveness over him, but he is… they did make their vows, and she intends to honor them, even if he does not. So it is a relief in some way to know that he is not scorning her in favor of another. But perhaps… he could have, before they were wed. He was in the Kingsguard, but what of it? Many members of the Kingsguard have still had mistresses.

If he did have a woman, in King’s Landing, perhaps, and then… well, he’d be doubly enraged by being dragged back to the Rock then, wouldn’t he? Stripped not only of his white cloak but of his lady love as well. Knowing all the while he might never see her again, faced with a wife he has no interest in… Berena has always been too sympathetic for her own good, but this seems a reasonable theory and if it is even a little true, then…

Perhaps she has judged him too harshly. He has not been so terrible to her, after all, and just knowing that he cares for someone so deeply, even if it is not her…. It makes the whole thing more palatable. Mayhaps he just needs more time. It would explain his actions after finally bedding her- he was angry with himself for ‘betraying’ this other woman.

That night at dinner, although he comes in late there is still sweat glistening on his neck- he has been training furiously in the yard again- she is unusually welcoming of him, rather than avoiding eye contact and pushing her food around on her plate. She asks after his day, and even when he gives a short response, smiles warmly. In turn, he shoots her increasingly suspicious looks, especially when she pours his wine for him.

Finally, he finishes his cup of wine and asks, bluntly, “Are you with child?”

Berena freezes, staring at him, own cup halfway to her mouth.

“Out with it, then,” he rolls his eyes.

“I- no!” She sets her cup down, feeling simultaneously hot and cold. Is that what he thought this was about? She was- she was trying to be understanding, to be the bigger person, and he-

“You’re not,” he says, gaze quickly raking apart her figure. “Of course. A pity. I wager you had hoped to be rid of that particular wifely duty-,”

“You are the one who acted like a defiled maid,” she snaps, pushing away from her seat, anger roused like it has not been in quite some time.

His lip curls. “Is that so, wife-,”

“My name is Berena,” she snarls, sucking in a breath, “we agreed on names, did we not? My name is Berena, and I am your wife, not your- plaything to mock and goad at after a day spent… hacking at squires like some green knight! No, Jaime, I am not with child, which should come as no surprise, given that we have lain together exactly once, and following which- you treated me like an unwelcome tavern whore insolent enough to linger in a lord’s bed!”

“Are you quite finished, Berena?” he sneers, with added emphasis on her name.

“I am!” She heads for the door leading to her chambers, but his voice stops her mere feet away from it.

“We may be called upon to travel again at the end of the year, you may wish to know.”

“And why is that?” she grits out without turning around.

“My sister, Her Grace the Queen, is with child. Father just received the happy news today.” His tone is utterly unreadable.

Berena struggles to compose herself for a few moments, and then says, “What wonderful news for the realm,” before slamming open the door and closing it behind her.


	8. Chapter 8

Berena first encounters Tyrion Lannister nearly a month after her arrival at Casterly Rock. That is to say, she has seen him before, from a distance, but never actually spoken to the boy before this. Jaime has mentioned him in such a way that he seems actually fond of his little brother, but never offered to introduce them. Thus, it is an entirely by accident that Berena rounds a corner and finds herself face to face with the halfman.

He is indeed a boy; he cannot be any older than eleven or twelve, judging from his face, although he is the size of a boy half that age. Berena openly stares for a moment, at his oversize forehead, mismatched eyes, and stunted arms and legs. He is carrying several books, and staring as much at her as she is at him. 

“Hello,” she says after a moment, and then curtsies- he is a lord, after all, no matter how… small. “You must be Tyrion.”

“No,” says the boy dryly, “I’m his evil twin brother, Tyrio.” He offers a smile that is equal parts wary and sardonic.

Berena doesn’t know what to do, so she laughs. “Are you coming from the library, Lord Tyrion?”

He gives a nearly imperceptible nod. 

Berena smiles in what she hopes is a reassuring fashion. He is not the monster she heard rumors of; he does not look deformed or repulsive to her, only a lonely child who gives off the impression that he is far more used to mockery and revulsion than anything else.

“Would you care to show me it? I’m afraid my lord husband is not one for books and scrolls.”

He does smile, genuinely, at that. “Jaime can’t stand to read. He hasn’t the patience.”

“He doesn’t have much patience for me, either,” Berena says, impudently, and Tyrion gives a little wondering look at her boldness, and then turns and leads her down the corridor and into the library, which is a good deal larger than the one in Winterfell, and illuminated by golden torches. Berena looks around, startled. Truth be told, she is not the most regular reader herself, but she has plenty of free time to begin now, doesn’t she? 

“It’s the largest in the westerlands,” Tyrion says, with something like pride. He obviously spends a good deal of time here, from the way he visibly relaxes upon entering. Berena is not surprised; he will never be able to compete in a tourney or fight a battle, so it makes sense that he has turned to improving his mind instead. 

“We have a library tower at Winterfell,” Berena cranes her neck back to stare up at the vaulted ceiling. Lions frolic above them. “But I’m afraid we don’t get new books very often.”

“Winterfell has glass gardens, doesn’t it?” he asks, and she glances down to look at him. He appears to be barely holding himself back from further questioning.

“Have you ever been to the North?” she asks with a small smile.

“No,” he sounds so sullen it is almost endearing, because he is just a boy, no matter his looks. “Father doesn’t let me go anywhere. He’s ashamed of me.”

Berena opens her mouth to contradict him, but- all evidence suggests otherwise, and she does not have the heart to lie to the child’s face. “But you can go all sorts of places in stories,” she says, instead. 

He brightens slightly. “Yes. I like the ones about the Targaryens and their dragons best.”

“I used to play at dragon games with my siblings,” Berena sits down at a nearby table, drawing in the dust with a fingertip. “My sister and I would make our brother Ned be Aegon, and we would be Visenya and Rhaenys- Lyanna always made me be Rhaenys.”

“Visenya was the warrior,” he says immediately.

“Rhaenys fought too,” Berena retorts defensively, then huffs. “Of course, we didn’t quite realize that Aegon had married his own sisters, back then. Ned never wanted to be Aegon the Conqueror, so sometimes he would be Torrhen Stark, and bend the knee to Brandon- Brandon loved to be the hero.” She’s not sure why she’s telling this boy, who she’s only really met mere minutes ago, this. Maybe his youth and seeming innocence is luring her into a false sense of security.

She doesn’t really care. At least he’s wide-eyed and listening to her, which is more than she can say for most of the Lannisters. “I can tell you all about the North, if you like,” she suggests, and she knows it is selfish, that she’s doing this more for her sake than his, but-, “and then it will be as if you have been there yourself.”

“Alright,” says Tyrion readily, and he scrambles up into the seat across from her. She talks of Winterfell and its bannermen and the wolfswood and even the Wall until her throat is sore. She tells Jaime’s little brother about her own father, and at one point mentions, without thinking, how her mother passed when she just a month old.

Tyrion goes still, and she guiltily remembers Lady Joanna’s fate. His birth killed her.

“I- once I asked my father, if he was angry with me, for her dying,” she says quietly. “He was never… very affectionate, with us children, and I was the youngest, so it was… easy to overlook me. I always did wonder, though?”

“Was he?” Tyrion asks.

“He told me that she was a part of me, just as I had been a part of her, before I was even born,” Berena gives a small smile. “And he could never hate me, because she was still with him, in all of his children.”

“My father doesn’t like to talk about my mother.”

“Neither did mine. He never mentioned her to me again,” Berena shrugs slightly. “I do- well, I don’t miss her, exactly, because she was never there to begin with. And I had my brothers and sister, so I didn’t notice. But I do… I do wish she were with me, sometimes, when I’m lonely.”

“My mother probably would have hated me,” Tyrion is staring down at the grain of the table.

“I think she would have been very proud, of such a clever son,” Berena says lightly. “Now I told you of the North, so you tell me of the West. What about this Lann the Clever, hm? Did he really steal the Casterly’s fortune?”

The first of her ladies arrives shortly thereafter. The first to arrive is a Kenning of Kayce- Corinne, a slim maid of eighteen whose brother has recently ascended to his seat. Corinne’s looks perplex Berena at first; she is dark-haired, pale, and grey-eyed, without the fair hair and sunkissed skin of most westermen. 

“My family is descended from Ironborn, my lady,” Corinne tells it, with a slightly devious glint in her cold eyes. “My ancestor Herrock took Kayce for your lord husband’s family, and in return they gave him a seat here. We still have his horn.”

Berena has never met an Ironborn before, although Corinne is not really one- she was raised a proper western lady, lineage or not. “Do you worship the Drowned God?”

“That would be telling,” Corinne says blithely, and adds with a smirk, “But I am no more at ease in a sept than you are, my lady.”

The next to arrive is a Brax of Hornvale; Lady Elara is only a year older than Berena, seventeen, with a sweet, innocent look to her; she has airy, white blonde hair that drifts down around her heart-shaped face, and bright green eyes. Elara does not possess Corinne’s taste for mockery and knowing looks, but rather is refreshingly earnest and, as she tells it, wild for horses, which Berena looks forward to, as none of the Lannister women are particularly interested in riding.

Then comes Lady Alysanne Lefford of Golden Tooth, whom Berena has already met during her journey to Casterly Rock; Alysanne is the youngest of her ladies, a cheerful girl of fourteen, newly flowered and eager to grow up. Her hair is as golden as any Lannister’s, perhaps because of how much the two houses have intermarried, and her eyes are as blue as the summer sky, shining out of her still childish face. She is very fond of archery, Berena learns, and a capable shot, at that, perhaps because she is her father’s only child and grew up motherless. 

The last to arrive is a Crakehall; Lady Johanne has thick brown hair, fierce dark eyes, and a shapely appearance for a maiden of fifteen. Her temper is also rather considerable. She and Corinne are well-acquainted with one another, and get along… rather poorly. Berena isn’t sure whether to be concerned or bemused by their enmity. At the very least, it livens things up a little.

Things are slightly awkward at first, of course. Berena has never had ladies of her own before; there were none at Winterfell when she was growing up, and independent Lyanna was certainly never surrounded by a gaggle of giggling girls. She also knows nothing of these girls, their houses, or their history, and so it is odd to think that she will share meals and embroidery and songs and even beds with them, for it is not uncommon for highborn ladies to room together when husbands are gone or nonexistent.

She is also not used to rooms falling silent when she enters them; no one ever quieted at the sight of her in the North. Men went silent for her father- for her they laughed and smiled and demanded songs. To think she has some sort of command over these girls, that she is the one who will decide what they do and when, is rather unsettling. Berena has never liked being in charge, at least not in that sense. She gets no thrill from knowing she has power over others.

After a few weeks, however, they seem to realize what sort of person she is, and she grows more comfortable suggesting things, and very soon Berena rarely finds herself alone. For some, this would be intolerable, but for her, it is a welcome change- she has never liked being alone, after all, has never craved solitude or quiet the way Ned always has. She doesn’t mind a crowd. Besides, it is much easier to feel as though she really is Lady Lannister when she has girls like Corinne Kenning at her back, daring anyone to argue with them.

“You are the wife of a Lannister who stands to inherit the entire Rock,” Corinne is fond of saying, “and you worry they might think you demanding? My lady, were I in your place, my demands would be numerous and constant.”

It is with them that she first rides out of the Rock and into the westerlands- Berena is still amazed by how long the horizon seems to stretch on for, how open everything is, the lack of forests. There are mountains, to be sure, but they seem to blend in with the plains and hills, at times, a sea of brown and green under a cloudless sky. 

Jaime cannot stand her ladies, which only makes Berena like them more. He grimaces every time they clatter into a room, removing cloaks and laughing about something, throwing themselves down into chairs and shooting him sly looks. Alysanne is struck dumb by the sight of him every time, and Elara always flushes pink, but Corinne and Johanne just tilt their chins in challenge and carry on with their bickering. They are sometimes joined by Darlessa, who is not much older than any of them, after all, and has no child yet to attend to.

Berena grows more comfortable as the months stretch on, happy to spend her days avoiding her husband and with the girls steadily becoming her friends, not just her prescribed attendants, writing letters to Ned and Cat about everything she has done and seen, carefully neglecting any mention of her marriage itself- it is easier to pretend she is here as a guest, not to stay. That it is summer makes it easier. Summers always blur the passage of time, when the days are long and hot and the nights lively and humid.

The matter of a child remains. Berena lies with her husband infrequently; being the one to initiate it always seems like a point of pride and contention, and they have not even been wed a year yet- plenty of women, even hale, fertile ones, do not fall immediately with child. Besides, with the upheaval of a move west and all the travel, it would not any great shock to find her courses irregular. 

Meanwhile, the queen’s pregnancy stretches on. Jaime does not bring it up again, but seems oddly restless- Berena suspects he is eager for an excuse to return to King’s Landing, to see the woman she thinks he still loves, and his sister giving birth to a little prince or princess is thus a personal matter for him. They will likely stay a least a month or two in the capitol once Cersei has the child, and he will have plenty of time to creep off and visit whoever it is that plagues him so.

Berena tries not to dwell on it. She is not a fool; she will not so much as indicate what she suspects, and he may do just as he pleases, so long as he does not drag her into it. The prospect of an extended amount of time spent at the queen’s side is not very… enthusing, but at least now she will have her ladies with her for company. And perhaps Cersei will be more genuinely friendly once she is a mother; the pressure to produce a son to inherit Robert’s throne must be tremendous. 

Sometimes Berena likes to think about a son of her own. Of course, the son is always just hers, not Jaime’s. He looks like Brandon, and he has a Stark name she will never be allowed to give her own children- there can be no Rickard or Beron Lannister, that would be absurd- and in her admittedly immature fantasies, she visits Winterfell with him and never leaves again. She does hope she has a son, when she does fall pregnant, because every time she considers a daughter all she sees is her sister, and she is not prepared for that.


	9. Chapter 9

Berena arrives in King’s Landing with the Lannister party just before the new year is rung in; her husband turns nineteen days before their arrival. Summer has started to fade away by then, but you can hardly tell, given the heat in the city. Berena has never been to King’s Landing before, and had never thought she would set foot in the city where her father and brother were murdered. 

Some sections of it are still in blackened ruins from the war, and the people avert their eyes and spit on the ground as the Lannister banners past. After all, it was Tywin Lannister’s men who sacked their city, raped their wives and daughters, killed their sons, and burned their homes. They say they curse the Old Lion from the slums to the manses. No one dares shout ‘Kingslayer’ as Jaime and Berena ride past, however. The smallfolk are not that daring. Berena would not be, either.

Cersei has given birth to a little boy, a prince, named Joffrey at his birth a fortnight past. Robert is in high spirits at the birth of an heir, and greets them jovially. His kiss on Berena’s knuckles lingers, and she, for once, is glad she is clad in Lannister red and gold, rather than Stark colors. She does not need any comparisons to Lya, not now, and not here, where Robert hoped to make a queen of her sister.

Not all her ladies could travel with her, and so she has only brought clever Corinne and wide-eyed Elara, but Tyrion has been permitted to come along, and she enjoyed showing him how to work his mount into a gallop, although he has a specially designed saddle to keep him falling off. She even went on a hunt with Corinne and several squires, and they managed to snag several pheasants. 

Berena does not like the city, or the Red Keep. Traces of the Targaryens linger, even if their red and black and dragon bones have been locked away. She can barely stand in the throne room, staring at the floor so as to avoid looking up at the rafters where they hung her father. Jaime seems similarly uncomfortable, although she never would have guessed it, from Ned’s tale of riding into the room to see the Kingslayer smirking on the throne.

They both have nightmares that first night; Berena wakes up sobbing in her own bed beside her blissfully sleeping ladies, and can distantly hear him wake with a shout in the adjoining room a few hours later, and then pace the rest of the night away. She keeps a close eye on his coming and goings, but never sees him leave the castle to visit some other woman.

Cersei remains mostly confined to her lavish rooms and personal feasting hall; even having given birth less than a month before she is still graceful, still beautiful, clad in vibrant scarlet, compared to Berena’s muted gold. She is lively and talkative, her babe always in her arms; he is a sweet little thing, Berena supposes, if a bit small, with his mother’s golden curls. 

“He has a roar like his father’s,” Cersei says lightly, stroking his face with a finger. “Howling his way into the world like a true warrior.”

She inquires kindly as to how Berena has found Casterly Rock, and then follows it with a pointed glance to Berena’s yet-flat midsection. “Don’t worry, sweet girl,” she says, as if she were not just two years Berena’s senior, and her smile turns vaguely triumphant. “Your time will come. But I’m sure my brother grows impatient. How do you find him? I hope he is a considerate husband, in all manners.”

She knows. Berena does not know if Jaime told her or if she surmised it herself- it is not difficult to tell that there is trouble in the marriage, as much as they smile and dance at feasts- but nevertheless, Cersei knows that on the best of days, they tolerate one another, and on the worst of days, snipe endlessly and lay stiffly beside one another in bed before Berena is dismissed, her wifely duty done.

“I couldn’t be happier, Your Grace,” Berena replies with a small smile she hopes is interpreted as shy. “Your brother is a good and gallant man. He treats me very well.”

“Oh, I’m so pleased,” Cersei croons. “Now if only he had an heir.”

Joffrey burbles in his sleep in her arms, and she hums softly. Vicious or not, the woman clearly loves her son, and Berena cannot begrudge her that. Tales of Robert’s whoring and drinking are heard from here to the Rock. He is certainly not the first lustful man to sit the Iron Throne, but Cersei Lannister is no pious, meek Nerys to be put aside in a sept while her husband takes lover after lover.

Robert is a generous host, and in peacetime the Red Keep is overflowing with food, drink, and singers. The court is still celebrating a successful birth, and Berena fingers the rubies around her neck at yet another feast while Robert pulls a serving girl into his lap. Cersei looks on, face darkening by the minute. Jaime sits beside her, on the far end of the table, smiling rather forcibly.

“They say the king was back in brothels not a month after they were wed,” Corinne comments in a low voice beside her. “And her the most beautiful woman in the realm.”

“Robert… Robert has always been like this,” Berena says, wary of her voice carrying. “He’s easily bored.”

“Easily bored, and with the most boring seat of all,” Corinne jests. “And the most uncomfortable.”

“How could he not love her?” Elara sighs. “She’s so beautiful it hurts.”

Berena knows what she means. “Perhaps they are just not suited to one another.” Like herself and Jaime. But no woman would suit Robert. Perhaps a different woman would tolerate his numerous faults in a more subdued fashion, but Cersei was, as Genna tells it, a queen from the moment she could toddle about, and it is not in a queen to be subdued. Even now she stands up, upending her goblet, and shakes away Jaime’s hand as she stalks from the table, her ladies scurrying after her. Robert does not notice, his face buried in the flushed serving girl’s neck. 

“Her Grace has lost her appetite,” Corinne says. 

Berena is not very hungry either. She hates it here. She does not like Casterly Rock, she has simply grown used to it, but she hates it here. And to think Robert had the wild thought of making her his queen. Gods above, she’d rather throw herself from the highest window. Jaime is a trial to endure, but at least he does not humiliate her in public with indecencies. At least he is not constantly drunk.

“I’d like to retire early as well,” she says, and then adds, “I can see myself back to our rooms, you may stay.” Corinne is eying a nearby knight appreciately, and Elara does love to dance. 

She hastens from the table before either has time to argue with her, and is glad that Jaime never pays much attention to her comings and goings, and thus does not stop her either. Their chambers are only a floor below the queen’s, and Berena pauses on the stairs before going up. Cersei’s ladies are fleeing her chambers hurriedly, wincing at the loud noises clashing after them.

Berena hesitates outside the door, which is unguarded at the moment. The queen must have dismissed them. Cersei is… well, she is throwing a fit. A table is overturned and jewels and silks lie scattered across the floor. The queen has let down her hair, her golden locks tumbling down her back, and is heaving standing in the midst of her own chaos, eyes flashing. Berena should not be here. Cersei is not her friend. But their fury cannot be so different, can it? 

Cersei stares at her.

“He has no right to shame you in such a way,” Berena says, “so soon after the birth of his son, no less. The fault lies with him.”

“I have tried,” Cersei says through her teeth, “I have tried to hold his interest, I have made myself-,” she looks away, “I have indulged his whims. But Robert- oh, nothing is enough for our Robert.” In that moment, she is just a shrill, furious girl, not a queen, not intimidating, nowhere near a grown woman, just a girl of nineteen, angry and shaking.

“No,” Cersei continues, “he would not be satisfied were I your sister come back to life! Do you think me blind? He’ll fuck you before the month’s out, and your ladies. Mayhaps he will even grant you the same gift he gave me, on our wedding night, and call you by her name!”

Berena takes a step as if slapped, face stinging. “I will not lie with your husband. Nor will my ladies.”

“Won’t you?” Cersei sneers. “Do you think I care? So long as he doesn’t get a bastard on you before my brother can. He was out hunting while I birthed Joffrey. A few hours of peace! Pray that Jaime grants you the same indulgence.”

“Jaime is not…” Jaime is not what? Not like Robert? No, he is not, but he is… She doesn’t know what he is. He is not what she wanted, and she suspects, he is not what he himself wanted either.

“Jaime is not,” Cersei mocks. “I suppose so. He even gave you my mother’s jewels to wear.”

Berena touches the rubies again. He did, but he did not mention they were Lady Joanna’s. 

“Yes,” Cersei spits, raw pain on her face, “MY mother’s. Not yours, you…,” she cannot seem to even find the words to describe Berena. “You’re just a simple little fool. You’re too thick to even understand your luck.”

“I’m sorry,” Berena says thickly, “I am, Cersei, I am sorry Robert is not what you hoped, I am sorry that you cannot be with your family-,” Extending sympathy is her mistake. Cersei would tolerate resentment, matched anger. She cannot abide being sympathized with.

“Get out,” she says. “I am Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and you are an upstart second daughter who had the good fortune to marry my idiot twin. You are nothing. You will be nothing. You can’t even give him a son. Robert only wants you because you bear a passing resemblance to your dead whore of a sister.”

Berena does leave then, before she does something she will surely regret, such as take the queen of Westeros by her beautiful, golden hair, and slam her lovely face into the mantle. She walks quickly down the hall, pulse thudding in her ears, and is in the stairwell, struggling to calm herself, when she hears footsteps echoing down the hall she just left. She pauses, the cranes her neck to listen. It’s Jaime. She steps up one step, then another, and just barely catches a glimpse of her husband going into the queen’s bedchambers.

She stands there for another moment, and then climbs back up to the top of the stairs. The corridor is silent. Aside from the noises coming from Cersei’s rooms. Berena considers that she may be imagining things, in her shock and anger. It cannot be. Perhaps it was not Jaime she saw going in at all. Her mind may very well be playing tricks on her. Her husband-

No. Jaime loves another, but it is not- it is not his sister, that is- he is her brother, she is upset, he has gone to comfort her, they are close, everyone knows that- Berena goes back down the stairs and into her room, still arguing with herself. This is ridiculous. Jaime was not- doing that with his sister. No matter what she heard- it can’t…

But it can. Were the last king and queen of the realm not siblings? If the Targaryens can, why not the Lannisters? Why not Jaime and Cersei? Were he still part of the Kingsguard… were he still in King’s Landing…

Well, there is one way to find out. Berena knows she should go to bed. She should try to forget this night, put it out of her mind. It will only cause her grief, and she’s had enough of that. But she cannot. She waits in Jaime’s rooms for him, by the fire. He is not long; if they are- if they are… they at least have the sense to not linger afterwards. 

He comes into the room with his curls in disarray and his clothes rumpled. Freezes when he sees her. Berena relishes the momentary upper hand, foolish as it is. 

“I went to see your sister,” she says lightly, and then- “Not long before you.”

She sees the truth of it on his face, plain as day, but before she can react he has crossed the room and has her by the throat. Berena does not know what she had planned for this confrontation- she really did not know for true until she said those last words and he looked as though she had just set the room ablaze, but this is as much confirmation as needed.

He is not choking her. He is simply preventing her from saying another word, because she is too frightened to do anything but clutch his hand and hope he does not begin to squeeze. It would not take much effort on his part. He is much bigger than her. He could kill her here and now. But then… what would he say had happened? He may be a Lannister, but even Lannisters cannot murder their wives and escape Ser Ilyn Payne’s sword.

“You didn’t see me,” he says, “because if you did…”

Berena just looks at him, trembling. He lets go of her throat. Panic kicks in, and she tries to dart around him. He easily catches her by the arm and drags her back against his chest, wrapping an arm around her midsection to keep her from running again. His breath is hot in her ear. “You didn’t see me. Say it.”

She stares at the door, which is closed. If she screams, would anyone come? His arm tightens around her. “I need to hear you say it, Berena.” This is more threatening than any of the times he has mockingly addressed her as wife. He doesn’t sound smug in the slightest. He sounds desperate, and that’s what terrifies her. 

“No.”

He turns her to face him, and she struggles wildly again. He shoves her back onto the bed, and easily pins her, sitting back on her legs. “Just say it,” he says hoarsely, “and we can forget it ever happened. There’s no need for this. You don’t know what you saw. You’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” she whispers. “I saw you.”

“Don’t do this,” he says. “Don’t make me…”

“Kill me?” she is starting to cry, not out of fear but out of frustration. “Will you kill me? And what will you tell my brother, when the North is at your gates? You can’t kill me.” That’s not true. Of course he could. It’d just have to look like an accident. A fall from a horse, down some tower steps. She could even die in her sleep, a pillow pressed over her face. It does happen.

“I can make you regret it,” he says. “You think me cruel, but you have no idea. You don’t know cruelty, Berena.”

“Will you beat the memory out of my head, then?” She should not be saying this to a man pinning her to a bed, but she cannot do much else. “I saw you. I saw you. I SAW YOU-,” his hand clamps over her mouth, pushing her head back into the bedspread. She bites down until she tastes blood. 

He grunts in pain, tears his hand away, and she sees his arm rear back to hit her. She looks away- they say you should always try to take a blow like that on the cheek- but his fist slams into the mattress beside her instead. Their breathing momentarily syncs, harsh and discordant.

“Is Joffrey yours?” she asks after a moment.

Silence. 

“I won’t tell,” she says. Who would believe her? What would be the point? To see all their heads on spikes? 

“She would kill you, even if I didn’t,” he says, and Berena believes him. “Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Her legs ache underneath him, and her throat is raw. This is madness. Negotiating with her husband, who is fucking his sister. “I just wanted to know. I knew there was a woman.”

“We won’t speak of it again.” He does move off her legs, to her relief, and lets her sit up. He is still watching her warily, wildly. He still keeps ahold of her arm. 

“Why?” she asks after a moment.

“I love her,” he is telling the truth, like he never has before. “I have always loved her. I can’t stand to be apart from her. He doesn’t deserve her.”

The sad part is that Berena agrees with him. Robert doesn’t deserve Cersei. Jaime deserves Cersei. Cersei deserves Jaime. Who does Berena deserve? She wonders why he didn’t hit her, even then. No one would rebuke him if they saw a mark on her face tomorrow. There are no repercussions for it. She wonders why she hasn’t hit him. Probably because she is afraid he will kill her, consequences be damned. Probably because she cannot even look at him right now, because he disgusts her in this moment, because she wants this all to be a nightmare.

“Go to bed,” he says, and lets go of her arm.

Agnese comes in to find her vomiting and hyperventilating in the privy. She guides her to the bed, wraps an arm around her, and lets Berena sob into her shoulder like a child, rubbing circles into her back. After a few minutes of this, she asks in a low, soothing tone, “Where did he hit you, milady?” 

She assumes, with good reason or not, that she has caught Berena in the aftermath of a beating, that it has finally escalated to outright violence rather than just shouts and slammed doors.

Berena chokes back another sob. “He didn’t, he didn’t, we just fought, he…” Of course she won’t say it. She’s not stupid. “It’s nothing, I’m just tired.”

“Did he force you?” Agnese asks after another moment.

“No,” says Berena, “no… I’m alright.”

“You are not alright,” Agnese says firmly, and Berena privately agrees. She isn’t. She was only just pretending to be, for months now. Her stomach roils again, and she darts for the privy. Agnese is frowning when she comes back. “Milady… you’ve been very tired lately.”

“Have I?” Berena asks dully. She assumed it was just from the travel east. 

“And your courses are late again,” Agnese adds. 

Berena wipes at her mouth weakly. “What- that’s not…,” she begins to count back days in growing panic. “We have not lain together since a month past. That’s… no.”

“Mayhaps you should see a maester, in the morn,” Agnese suggests, and sets about undressing her for bed. Berena complies silently, too numb to do much of anything but lie in bed and close her eyes and pretend none of this is happening.


	10. Chapter 10

Berena does not see a maester, partly because she does not like Pycelle and his fawning, obsequious nature, and partly because she believes him to firmly be in the Lannister pockets. If Pycelle knows she is with child, the queen will be informed almost immediately. 

Cersei is a threat due to her influence and her rages, but Berena does not truly believe Cersei is yet powerful enough to inflict retribution on Berena for getting with her twin and lover’s child, and to completely get away with it without provoking the ire of her lord father. Still, she thinks it best Cersei not know until they are well away from King’s Landing.

She does not tell Jaime purely out of spite; she’ll freely admit to that. She does not want to be pregnant with his son or daughter, she does not want to tell him- it’s not fair. It’s not fair that he should get to fuck his sister and still have a wife and children. It’s not equivalent. Why should he reap benefits that he doesn’t deserve? Why should she have to suffer in silence for years to come?

At least, were he still in the Kingsguard, there would be some sense of… of sacrifice. That he was giving up the prospect of marriage and children and lordship, all so he could have Cersei. Berena does not believe that conceiving a son with Cersei was Jaime’s cunning scheme. 

Jaime may know the boy is his, but Joffrey’s existence doesn’t seem to register much. He did not enter into this affair with the long-term goal of seeing his bastard child on the Iron Throne. Likely that is Cersei’s greatest desire instead- to see a wholly Lannister child as king, the ultimate slap in the face to Robert and the ill he has inflicted on her. 

And Robert has inflicted many ills- Berena glimpses the ring of finger shaped bruises on one of Cersei’s slender wrists at dinner one day. The queen has plenty of reason to hate her husband. Berena certainly would, were she married to him. Her response might not be to then turn to her brother instead, or even any other man, but she can understand, distantly, why Cersei has done this.

Jaime watches her like a hawk in the days and weeks following the revelation, if you can call it that. Berena barely looks at him, makes forced idle chatter with her ladies instead, who she has sworn to secrecy about the pregnancy, and prays they leave King’s Landing before it becomes obvious. As it is, she estimates she is now about six weeks along, and is lucky that her nausea and vomiting usually only come in the evening or in the early morning.

Berena knows he has not told Cersei that she knows, because she does not think Cersei is good enough of an actress to still regard Berena as little more than an irritating, barren blemish on the Lannister family tree, had she known what Berena knows. Jaime is likely right. Cersei would be murderous otherwise. Instead she seems to revel in the fact that her brother’s marriage is a failure. 

They leave court shortly before Berena’s seventeenth name day. Her first name day as a wedded woman. Her first name day away from home. She tries not to dwell on it much, and to focus on the fact they are out of the city, and away from Robert and Cersei, instead. She has had her fill of kings and queens and bastard princes. 

It is not so much that Jaime and her are not speaking but that there is nothing to say, both resigned to the fact that they are returning to the Rock, returning to a poor facsimile of a married life, returning to what will gradually become normal. Berena is not sure how long she will be able to take it. What will it be, a yearly or twice-yearly visit to King’s Landing so he can sire another bastard on Cersei to pass off as Robert’s?

And then, on the gold road, she recklessly tries to clear a stream with Torrhen, riding harder than someone who is two months pregnant should be, and slips from the saddle. Berena blames her cumbersome skirts for that, but the thought does not help much as she plunges into the cold water of the stream. It is barely five feet deep, and she learned how to swim as a girl, but her clothes wear her down all the same, and it is a struggle to clear her head above the rushing water. 

As she catches hold of a low-hanging branch, Elara, who was not far behind her, wheels her mount back, screaming for ‘Ser Jaime’, and Berena becomes convinced that letting her husband fetch her out of the water like a miscreant child will be the ultimate humiliation, and so when Jaime’s stallion comes thundering down the hillside he finds her half out of the water, sopping wet and gasping for breath, and hissing curses under her breath with every twinge from her ankle.

“I’m alright,” she says, although she is not alright, she has just taken a hard fall from a horse and landed on her ankle, but he ignores her, catching her under the armpits and hauling her up on her feet. Berena stands for a moment, and then sucks in a breath when she tries to put weight on the ankle.

“Berena,” Elara says shrilly, unthinkingly, “the babe-,” and Berena could strangle her at the look of shock that passes over Jaime’s face.

“Leave us,” says Berena hoarsely, and tries to draw herself up with as much cold dignity as someone with dead leaves in their hair can, “now, Elara.”

Elara turns back for the rest of the party, and Berena unwillingly sags in Jaime’s grip before straightening again.

“You’re with child?” he demands.

She says nothing.

“Why in the name of the Seven are you jumping streams like a squire when you’re with child?” he snaps, letting go of her. “Have you lost your mind?”

Berena presses her lips together thinly.

“If you wanted to be rid of it,” he continues savagely, “a dose of moon tea-,”

She slaps him so hard across the face that the crack rings out like a whip. She can already see the red welt rising on his high cheek. He looks back at her and Berena raises her chin, daring him to retaliate. 

“Unlike you,” she says, in a voice barely above a whisper, “I was raised to honor my vows, so I will have this child. Pray to whatever gods you please that it is a son, so you may return to fucking Cersei as soon as you like and we may be done with this farce.”

His breath is whistling in and out through his nostrils. “I am your husband,” he begins, “and you have no right-,”

“I have every right,” she hisses. “I will not indulge you like a spoiled child any longer. I am performing my duty. Consider at least attempting yours.” She looks to Torrhen, who has been grazing peacefully on the other side of the stream, and whistles for him.

Jaime seems to recover himself at last, and picks her up. Berena immediately squirms; he hasn’t picked her up since their wedding. “Put me down!”

“You’ve sprained your ankle, I’d wager,” he says, with some measure of satisfaction, “so you won’t be riding anywhere for some time.”

“Lucky me,” she sneers, and dislikes immensely the vicious, spitting thing he’s made her into.

“Yes,” he snaps, “lucky you, that you didn’t hit your head on a rock and drown, or break your neck, or your back- lucky you, that you tried to jump a creek side-saddle like a fool.”

“I wouldn’t have to ride side-saddle in the North!”

“Then you should have stayed there!” he snarls.

“I DIDN’T HAVE MUCH OF A CHOICE, DID I?” she roars back, as he sets her up atop his horse. She grips the reins defiantly and debates trying to gallop off without him, but her ankle does hurt, the pain twisting up and down.

“Have you ever considered, Berena,” he asks, through gritted teeth, as he leads Torrhen over to tie the reins together-

“There’s no need,” she cuts him off flatly, “Torrhen will follow us.”

“Have you ever considered,” he continues, ignoring her, “that I might be the slightest bit begrieved to find my wife dead or crippled in a stream?”

“If you care about my wellbeing, you have a curious way of showing it,” she snipes back. “When you were threatening to murder me in cold blood for the great crime of discovering you-,”

He grabs her elbow in warning, and she nearly plows it into his handsome, angry face. “Don’t touch me.”

“I wasn’t-,” he cuts himself off. “Berena. I was- I’m sorry. I know I… frightened you.”

“Frightened me?” she barks a humorless laugh. “Oh, yes, you frightened me- you terrified me out of my wits, you bastard! Have you ever- you have no idea what it’s like, do you? To know someone has so much power over you? To know they could beat or rape you or lock you in some tower and no one would give two shits about it, because they’re Tywin Lannister’s precious boy?”

Ladies do not use such language, but she’s a Stark first and foremost, and she won’t be sorry if some of dear, dead Brandon creeps in from time to time. Brandon would have skinned Jaime alive like a Bolton lord for what he’s done.

He’s just looking at her. “Is that it, then?” he asks quietly, almost- no he’s not guilty, he can’t be, but he is… subdued. “You laid with me because you thought otherwise I’d force your legs apart anyways? Beat you if you refused me?”

“No,” she says honestly, “I laid with you because it was my duty, and you were… decent enough about it.”

“The Mad King used to take his wife after he burned a man.” Jaime is not looking at her, he is looking at the autumn leaves reflected in the churning stream, burgeoned by autumn rains. “Not just roughly. Badly. She’d scream and cry and plead with him to stop. I wanted to stop him. Gods, I wanted to shove my sword in him while he was shoved in her. But he was our king. And we made our vows to defend him. Not to defend her from him.”

“You’re not Aerys.” It’s not a statement of reassurance from her.

“No,” he says, shaking his head, and climbing up behind her. “I’m not mad. Just honorless.”

“Why did you wait to kill him, then?” she asks boldly, as he prods his horse into a trot. “Because your father’s men were already in the city?”

“Something like that,” says Jaime. He is lying, and she does not know why. He has never pretended to not be the Kingslayer. He has never pretended to be a better person than he is, and perhaps there is some twisted honor or integrity in that, at least. He has never told he he loves her, and then betrayed that. He has never made her any promises.

Her ankle is looked at and wrapped and she has to swear to keep to the wheelhouse for at least a fortnight, and Jaime dutifully informs Lord Tywin of her pregnancy that night. Berena feels like a child summoned for punishment, sitting in a chair in his tent as he studies her coldly.

“Is the idea of motherhood so foreign to you that you would risk my future grandson?” he asks after a moment. 

Berena knows better than to try for a quick retort with her goodfather, and instead says quietly, “No, my lord. I wasn’t thinking, my lord, I- I apologize.”

“Not a particularly sharp-witted thing, is she?” Tywin asks Jaime dryly, and Berena does not look up, pretending she is not there but somewhere else instead, and then, to her surprise, Jaime puts his hand on her shoulder.

“The fault lies with me, Father. I was brusque with her, and she was upset and not thinking clearly,” he lies. He did not have to, Berena will admit to that. He could have easily agreed with Tywin, berated her for her ungratefulness, her sullen silence, her thoughtlessness. 

“Nevertheless,” says Tywin, lip curling slightly at the mark on Jaime's cheek, as if his son's manhood is in question because the wife did the slapping. “You are the husband in this marriage, and she is the wife. See to it that you both act accordingly.”

Jaime lets her lean on his arm as she hobbles out of the tent. 

“If it is not a boy,” Berena says softly, “he will be ill-pleased with me.”

“A daughter can inherit the lordship of the Rock,” Jaime replies after a moment. “It has happened before. There is no shame in it. My lady mother ruled from my father’s seat for much of their marriage, while he was away at court.”

Berena glances at him. He is saying that, even if the babe is a girl, he will not insist they produce a male heir. He will not hold it against her. It is a small boon, perhaps, but she is oddly touched by it, as furious as she still is with him.


	11. Chapter 11

Berena does not feel as though it is real until she is four months gone into the pregnancy, and the slightest bump is visible through her shift. She pulls it up and peers curiously into the clouded mirror in her room. She is more tired than usual now, going to bed much earlier and strictly banned from any riding or ‘excessive activity’. But she is hungry, always hungry, wandering down to the kitchens like a child when her stomach is growling at all hours, and her ankles are slightly swollen. 

The Lannister household is well pleased with the news; she knows they must have been beginning to fear she was barren, after nearly a year and no signs. And it seems a welcome pleasant surprise for some, for Ser Tygett has taken ill from a pox and the maesters are doubtful as to how much longer he can fight it off. Lady Darlessa, his wife, is seven months pregnant herself, and hopes he will at least live long enough to become a father.

Her other ladies are delighted, of course, even Corinne who is busy planning her own wedding to an Estren of Wyndhall. A pregnancy is something women have entirely to themselves, not subject to male interference, the realm of midwives and mothers and sisters. Even Agnese has opinions about everything, if only because Berena is an unusual mistress in that she is more than willing to hear them.

Berena has no mother, nor a sister, not anymore, and it is odd when she thinks about it- in her fleeting thoughts of motherhood as a child, it was always something shared with Lyanna. They would both be mothers, and their children would play together, and they would have each other to turn to when their time in the birthing bed came. Of course, Lyanna had her birthing bed. And died in it, alone and afraid.

The more Berena thinks of that tower, the more she hates Rhaegar. How could any man leave the woman he loved to face that alone? War or no war, her sister deserved better than to suffer through it alone, with no maesters or midwives, only a few terrified servants and high window. The idea of Lyanna in a tower at all is almost absurd. 

Lyanna would not stay cooped up in some room, waiting for a man to come for her, not unless the windows were barred and the doors chained shut. Perhaps they were. Perhaps by then, she was too weak and too wracked with grief to do anything but wait. Berena doesn’t like to dwell on it. She is not Lyanna. She may not be in ideal circumstances, but at least she is free, to an extent.

Free to be followed about like a toddling child with a nursemaid, apparently, for that is what Jaime has been doing of late. The pregnancy first seems to sink in for him when he does see the bump, pushing open her bedroom door (far too casually, she might add), and coming to a complete standstill when he sees her poking at it.

“Should you be doing that?” he finally asks, as if she might somehow harm the babe by prodding at her belly.

“Should you enter my chambers without knocking?” she shoots back, although with no real bite, and pulls down her shift again. “You act as if you’ve never seen it before.”

Jaime says nothing for a moment, and then shrugs almost stiffly. “My mother, I suppose, when she was pregnant with Tyrion. But I was just a little boy then.”

Berena feels a flash of guilt, although she should not. He is well deserving of an uncomfortable thought here or there. It is not as if this is his first child, after all, although to everyone else, it must be. But he was not there when Cersei discovered she was pregnant with Joffrey, not there when she began to show, not there when the babe quickened within her and began to kick, not there when her labor started, nor there to see his son born, or to hold him or name him…

And that is his punishment, isn’t it? The natural consequence of the crime. He forfeited the right to be a father to his bastard, simply by the act of fathering it. But that doesn’t mean she’s devoid of sympathy, or pity, for him. Just because he is a man does not mean it is any less hard to be separated from his own child, to know it is being raised by another man… Although in truth, Berena cannot imagine Robert ever being the most involved father, unless little Joffrey learns to swing a war hammer as soon as he can toddle.

Jaime seems to be making up for lost time, however, by hounding her incessantly, constantly asking if she needs assistance with this or that or cautioning her not to stand too fast or take the stairs too quickly or to strain her now healed ankle again and appearing at random throughout the day to look in on her and her ladies, when previously he was quite content to ignore her existence until dinner.

Alysanne thinks it’s charming, being barely fifteen and naive. “Most men don’t take such an interest,” she tells Berena earnestly. “But Ser Jaime is so concerned for your wellbeing; it’s very sweet of him, my lady.”

“As I’m sure you’ve heard, my husband is not most men,” Berena stabs the baby blanket she is supposed to be calmly, maternally embroidering, with her needle, before ripping it through the other side. “In fact, I would be hard pressed to name a man sweeter than he.”

Johanna Crakehall, who has heard her and Jaime in the thick of an argument before, disguises her snort of laughter with a cough.

“Have you considered names yet?” Genna asks her at dinner one evening, while Berena helps herself to a third serving of stew, ignoring the stare being leveled at her by her goodfather, who, to her knowledge, has yet to list birthing a child among his many accomplishments, and thus whose opinion will not be consulted for the next five months.

Jaime opens his mouth, but Berena says, “I had thought to ask Tyrion, since he knows so much of your family’s history.”

Tyrion, who has been picking at his meat at the far end of the table, lifts his head and brightens momentarily, mismatched eyes gleaming in the torchlight. Berena smiles back at him. 

“Our family’s history,” Jaime corrects her under his breath, taking another sip of his wine.

Berena hums in assent, although throughout their recent time at court, she was more often addressed as Lady Berena or Lady Stark than Lady Lannister. When the babe is born, if it is healthy, they will commission a portrait of the young heir and his wife and child. 

All Berena can think of is the image of her seated, dark-haired, grey-eyed, long-faced, with her golden husband standing behind her and a green-eyed babe in her arms. Future generations will pause and glance at it curiously, before continuing on their way. She will be a brief anomaly in the glorious Lannister tree.

She has seen the last known painting of Lady Joanna; it was done before Tyrion’s birth. The twins do not appear any older than four or five in it, nearly identical, dressed in matching emerald green. Lord Tywin’s smile seems almost genuine as he stands behind his lady wife, his ringed hands on her shoulders. 

Joanna, however, is an enigma. Her bearing is proud and composed, like that of a much older woman, but her smile is slightly mysterious, impossible to read. Berena has on occasion wondered what she would think, of this Northern girl wed to her precious little boy. They say she was quite adept when it came to politics; if she had lived, it might never have come to pass. Jaime might never have been in the Kingsguard at all; Berena has heard tell that he was nearly betrothed to Catelyn’s sister, Lysa, who is now the wife of old Jon Arryn. 

She wonders if he would have been happier with Lysa, who she remembers now, several years since having last seen the girl, as a dreamy, giggly maid with a soft smile and a fragile look to her watery blue eyes. But there’s as much sense in wondering about that as there is in imagining a different husband for herself.

In what must be her eighteenth week of pregnancy, she sits in the library with Tyrion and looks over birth records of long dead Lannisters. “Loreon the Lion, the first known Lannister king,” Tyrion reads aloud. “Defeated the Hooded King, Morgon Banefort, in the Twenty Years War, also known as the War of the Shroud.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Berena squints at the scroll in front of her. “King Tybolt Lannister, called Tybolt the Thunderbolt, who held off the savage Andal warlords who threatened the westerlands. Why do you suppose they called him the Thunderbolt?”

“Perhaps for his shits,” Tyrion mutters, and she closes her eyes in exasperation before choking back a laugh and swatting at him.

“This is a very serious matter, you know,” Berena tries to summon up her best scolding tone. “I could be carrying a future Lord of the Rock. He’ll need a name… Or she,” she amends. “What about Lannister queens? Or ladies?”

Tyrion shrugs. “There was Queen Lelia of the Iron Islands… she was a Lannister by birth. But then the Ironborn rose up in rebellion and cut off her lips, and her ears, and her eyelids, and her tongue-,”

“Yes, I can picture it very vividly,” Berena groans, “thank you, Tyrion.” She flips shut the open books in disgruntlement. “They never do write about the wives and daughters, do they?”

“They’ll write about my mother,” Tyrion says quietly. “Father will make sure of that.”

“Well, if I-,” Berena cuts herself off, because she was about to say, rather sarcastically, ‘If I die in childbirth, I’d hope Jaime would extend me the same honor, but I’ll likely get a sentence or two at most.’ Instead she swallows, and then frowns, a hand going to her belly. 

Tyrion is staring at her in concern. “Berena? What’s wrong?” His voice cracks slightly in boyish anxiety as he scrambles down from his chair. 

“I- I’m alright, don’t worry,” Berena says quickly. “I just… I think I felt the babe move.”

He slowly smiles, and she uncertainly matches his grin. 

That night, she puts aside her pride and resentment, or at least some of it, and sits on the edge of Jaime’s bed, guiding his hand to the right spot. “Just wait a moment.”

He almost pulls away, looking nearly frightened. “I don’t-,”

And then the babe kicks firmly against their hands, and for the first time in months, they lock eyes with the exact same feeling. “They hear your voice,” she says, embarrassed of how shrill and girlish her voice sounds, because they are not a happy couple united in joy over their firstborn, but they- they could be… together, in this, no matter how tentatively. It is both of theirs, after all.

Jaime holds his hand there even after she takes hers away. When he finally pulls back, he sits beside her on the bed. She feels as though she ought to say something. “Promise me, even if something goes wrong, you will still love it. Or try to.”

He stares at her, uncomprehending. “What are you talking about?”

“My mother died after birthing me. My-,” she almost says, ‘My sister’ but stops herself just in time. “My… my hips are narrower than they could be. Your aunt tells me you and your sister and brother- you were all big babes. If I…”

‘You’re not going to die,” he says incredulously, as if she is being absurd and childish, but she sees the look in his eyes. “You’re not,” he repeats forcefully, when she does not immediately reply. “Berena.”

“You can’t intimidate me into not dying, Jaime,” she rolls her eyes, even as he grabs her by the shoulder, not roughly, but… possessively? Protectively? Not in any way he has before. 

“We have the best maesters, the best midwives. You’re- you’ll be fine,” he sounds as if he is reassuring himself more than her. Typical self-centered Lannister, she reflects drolly.

“I just want to know the babe will be loved, if it lives and I do not,” she says sternly, and now it is her turn to be forceful with him. “Do you understand? Your father-,”

“Tyrion is a dwarf, that is different-,”

“Your father thinks your brother killed your mother,” she says calmly. “And I know we do not have anything close to what your parents felt for one another, but I will not have my son or daughter raised like that. I don’t care if they are a dwarf or have a tail and wings. I want to know that you will be there for them. No matter what.”

He gets up and stands before her, and then, somewhere between sardonic and utterly serious, gets down one knee. “I swear to you,” he says, “on my honor as your lord and husband, as a knight of the realm, that I will love and defend our child, regardless of the circumstances.”

He swore to love and defend her in the eyes of her own gods, once, and she cannot say he has done both without reproach, but she perhaps believes him more now, kneeling in his bed-clothes before her, than she ever did in that godswood. 

“Good,” Berena says, “because if you don’t, I’ll come back as a ghost, and haunt you for the rest of your bloody life. It’s special trick we northron savages have up our sleeve when wronged. We have a hard time staying dead, you see.”


	12. Chapter 12

Berena goes into labor three weeks after Ser Tygett is laid to rest in the Rock’s catacombs. A few days after the funeral service has concluded her ‘lying in’ begins, and she understands why they call it ‘a lady’s confinement’. Her rooms are closed off from the rest of the castle, no men are permitted to enter, and all her meals are brought to her. 

This would perhaps be pleasant, Berena thinks, if she did not feel like a prisoner awaiting execution. She can only pace the room, ignoring the ache in her back and feet, so many times, and while she is constantly being urged to try to sleep, that proves difficult as well. She tosses and turns all night and is usually awake with the dawn, sitting out on her balcony and watching the sun rise over the Rock.

Autumn has truly begun now and the cold nip in the air in the mornings is comforting; if she closes her eyes and just feels the cool wind on her face, she can almost pretend she is back in the North. The golden plains and hills of the westerlands have turned umber and brown, and on the mountainous horizon she can see the leaves turning. There are old wives tale for babes born in all seasons, and they say autumn children are cautious and clever.

Berena was born in the flush of summer, and is as energetic and impulsive as they say summer children are, so perhaps there is some truth to it. She can feel the babe moving around in her now, and talks to it often, to her ladies’ amusement. It is not as if there is much to talk about; cloistered away like this, she has little idea of the latest household gossip or news, and she rarely sees even Jaime.

It is probably for the best- she cannot think of a single person more stress-inducing to her than him, with the exception of perhaps her goodfather- but it still feels… odd. The child is still his, after all, and to go through this alone seems strange. But she has little experience with any of it, being the youngest in her own family and having never been around a pregnant woman for any great length of time, and it cannot be so different in the North.

The child is prompt, she will give them that. They awaken her at dawn when her waters break, and her rooms are suddenly a flurry of activity. Alysanne and Elara are ushered out, Johanna stays, for she is one of many children and is well aware of how things go, Corinne goes to inform Jaime, and Agnese is sent to fetch the maester and the midwife. Dorna and Darlessa both filter into the room as well, as they have both given birth before- Darlessa’s son Tyrek is two months old. 

Maester Creylen is as soft-spoken as ever, and all Berena remembers of the midwife is that she has callused hands and dark eyes. The room is suddenly dark and cloying and more than anything she wants to throw herself out an open window, but she grits her teeth and closes her eyes and thinks of Ned and Cat, and their letter congratulating her on the pregnancy, and tries not to think of Lyanna and little Jon Snow. 

She labors for six hours before the child quickly slips out into the world all at once, neat and bloody, and gives a hacking cry. The midwife pounds the babe on the back, holds him up for Berena, who feels rather delirious and as if her head is stuffed with wool, to see, and says evenly, “A boy, milady.”

“A boy,” whispers Dorna to her, squeezing her hand tremulously, “You have a little son, Berena.”

He is a thin babe but healthy enough, and laid on her chest several minutes later. Berena looks at this tiny, squalling thing, a little son, her little son, and searches his face intently. He has Ned’s nose, her ears, and the hair slicked back against his damp, warm scalp is dark, not fair. There is some vague sense of relief, in that. He is the promised Lannister heir but he looks all Stark, for now, and that must count for something. 

When Jaime is finally allowed in close to an hour later, the maester and midwife have since departed and the other women file out to, Berena assumes, allow them some semblance of privacy. She feels as though she has not seen him in weeks; he looks as if seized by dread, like a child caught doing something he’s been warned against, and what she says, rather than ‘look at your son, our son’ or ‘would you like to hold your heir, my lord?’ is “Did you not shave this morning?”

He stares at her, and then gives one of his queer, mirthless laughs. “I confess to being distracted.”

“I shall try to forgive this slight,” Berena smiles at him faintly; she may be slightly hysterical still from the birth. The babe is silent in her arms, but she can feel each breath he takes. It’s reassuring. He has to be strong. She needs him to be strong for her. He will have no other choice. The Rock is no place for weak lordlings. 

Jaime approaches slowly, as if confronting a wounded beast, and then sits at the edge of the bed. “Does he have a name?”

“No,” says Berena, “you are his lord father, and I thought… it best to leave that to you,” she struggles to hold back a yawn, although it is not even sundown yet. She feels now as if she could sleep for days. 

He is looking at the infant with another expression she cannot discern, and then says, “What about Gerold?”

“Gerold Lannister,” Berena murmurs, tasting it in her mouth. It is a name she could grow comfortable with. Certainly not as severe as ‘Tyrek’ or ‘Tybolt’. “I was afraid you would insist on Tywin.”

Gerold Lannister, she thinks, will one day rule all the westerlands, and may never know that his own half-brother sits the Iron Throne. His own cousin will rule the north. There is something darkly amusing about a Lannister, Baratheon (even if by name only), and a Stark sharing the same blood. An accidental binding of three great houses. 

She offers young Gerold to his father. “Go on and hold him, then.”

“He looks like you.” Jaime does not sound displeased by this. In fact, she thinks she may see the shadow of a smile tugging at his mouth when he glances from the infant to her. 

“He looks like my brother,” Berena sighs. “Your father will be thrilled, I’m sure.”

“To hells with my father. He has a grandson.” She knows he is only jesting, but just to hear him say it gives her something of a jolt. She feels a sudden flood of something approaching affection for him, in that moment, as much as she can blame it on the birth and the fact that he is holding their son in his arms. A healthy male child is as much as peace treaty or salve as any. Regardless of anything they have said or done to one another, he is theirs, and she can- she can be content with that.

She would like to at least be comfortable in the presence of her child’s father, if nothing more, and he does not seem upset or even disappointed that there is little of the classic Lannister look in the boy. With some exertion, she struggles up a bit more in bed to adjust Jaime’s grip on him. “You have to support his head.”

He is still looking down at the infant in his arms, unusually quiet.

“Lucky that he was skinny,” Berena says. “My hips were not the issue the maester feared they’d be.”

“I was with Tyrion,” he replies after a moment. “He was prattling on about this and that for hours.”

“He talks more when he’s nervous,” she agrees, and then smiles. “You should bring him in so he can see his nephew.”

Gerold reminds her of Jon as an infant; he’s a quiet, serious babe. He nurses and sleeps well, although Genna is aghast that she would refuse a wetmaid, and Berena keeps his cradle by her own bed, not liking the idea of him being kept in a nursery down the hall. She likes watching him wake in the mornings, and his thoughtful, dark grey, almost black eyes, the way they follow her every movement, 

But when he does keep her up crying one night, she walks around the room with him, patting his back and humming in vain, until she turns to find Jaime in the doorway. He wordlessly takes the babe from her, and to her surprise, Gerold soothes within the hour. They develop something of a nightly routine after that; she sings to him, and then his father rocks him until he drifts off. It is odd to see the likes of proud, wickedly handsome Jaime Lannister with a tiny babe in his arms, but she comes to appreciate the sight. He loves Gerold. Some things don’t need to be spoken aloud to be known. 

When Gerold is deemed old enough to be taken outside, bundled up as he is, she brings him to the small, rocky godswood, and stands among the bare branches and gnarled roots, leaves crunching underfoot. “You are a Lannister of the rock, little man,” Berena tells him, “but your mother is a Stark of Winterfell, and my gods are yours as well. They don’t say much, but they listen.” 

She sits down on a worn bench under the direwood, and under her breath, tells him about the North- about Winterfell’s ancient walls, crumbling towers, and dark crypts, about the wolfswood and the whispering pines, the frigid streams and the distant howls of wolves. She tells him about his grandfather, proud Lord Rickard, and his uncles and aunt, and how much they would like to see him, if they could. She tells him about his cousins.

“One day we will visit Winterfell, and you and Robb and Jon will play at swords in the yard, and maybe there will be another little boy with you, for your Aunt Cat is with child again. Or a girl, and you might marry her, and she could be your Lady Lannister someday. Or mayhaps you will marry a Lefford or a Brax or a Crakehall. Don’t worry, Ger. Your mama will be very picky.”

She pauses, enjoying the sight of her breath misting in front of her face.

“Or you might go to court and advise your cousin the king when his time comes to rule. There are so many things you will be able to do, because you are a son, not a daughter.” She leans down and presses a quick kiss to your brow. “I’m glad, Ger. Gods willing, it will be easier for you than it ever was for me. No war, and-,” her breath catches in her throat, however briefly, “and your mama and father will always be here. We won’t go.”

It’s odd, how motherhood works. She was worried about never living to see him grow, but now that he is here and they both are well, she’s terrified of losing him, or him losing her. Or… or him losing Jaime. Not just physically, but- she worries that one day, Jaime will look at him, and only see his heir, not his son, or that one day Gerold will view his father as nothing more than a reminder of his duties as a future lord. It’s naive of her, but she wants more than that for her son. She wants him to have a family bound together by more than just responsibility and honor. 

Mayhaps she wants him to have what she feels she did not, what was ripped away from her when she was only thirteen. Just a child. She knows that now, only four and a half years later. Thirteen was too young to be thrust into her world. She should have been giggling over boys and sneaking sips of wine, not waiting and waiting for someone, anyone, to come home, waiting to see if they were triumphant rebels or loathed traitors to the rest of the realm. 

She never wants Gerold to have to wait for his life to start again, especially not now that it has just begun.


	13. Chapter 13

Berena loves Ger so much that it makes her chest ache like it’s fit to burst. She delights in everything about him, from his somber Stark face to his light brown hair laying flat atop his head to his little hands in feet. The first time he smiles at her it is early in the morning and she has come to take him from his cradle, and the little grin on his face takes her by surprise, until laughter erupts from her shocked mouth and she has to clap a hand over it to silence herself.

She loves watching Jaime bounce Ger on his knee while she makes faces at him, she loves rocking him in her arms and singing Autumn of My Day, which she sometimes changes to Gerold of My Day, she loves listening to him babble quietly to himself in the morning, she loves the way he plays with her ladies’ hair when they take turns holding him. She loves the deference, too, that she is shown now, the way Genna and Dorna and even Kevan and Lord Tywin speak to her like a woman now, not a child. 

If being a mother both brings her joy she has never felt before and gains respect in the eyes of her good-family, then she does not think she can be faulted for letting herself be happy, even relaxed, no longer wary and bracing for criticism or censure every time she opens her mouth or enters a room. She has brought their house a healthy male heir, and that can never be taken away from her. She is a woman not only wedded and bedded, but triumphant in the birthing bed as well. Gerold is proof of a long battle finally won. 

But she would love him even were she the poorest farmer’s wife- he’s her son, not a coveted jewel. He makes her happy just by existing, by looking at her with the trusting eyes of a child, and she knows he makes Jaime happy as well, although Jaime seems almost baffled by this, confused by the way Gerold coos “Dadadada” when he enters a room, the way he crawls towards him as the snows begin to fall outside and the days grow short. 

The winter is a mild one, even by southron standards, and is certainly the mildest Berena has ever lived through- it’s more akin to a northern spring, really. The snows come, but they merely coat the ground in a light layer of white, and most days are windless and crisp, nothing like the howling storms of ice and sleet Berena knew as a little girl. It hardly keeps her confined to the interior of the Rock, and she enjoys pulling on her boots and stomping through the snow, doubling over with laughter when one of her snowballs hits cross Johanne directly in the chest.

“Berena!” she snaps, as snow melts down her brown cloak. “You are a married mother!”

Elara is trying to muffle her helpless giggles through a gloved hand, and Alysanne is unabashedly building a snowman. 

“And you are a maiden still,” Berena finally gasps out when she regains her breath, “so enjoy your games!” Smirking, she goes to make another snowball, and Johanne gives in with a huff, returning with an attack of her own. 

Corinne has wed her Lord Estren and writes of their (frequent) attempts to produce a son, which, from the phrasing in her letters, she seems to enjoy very much. Jaime once reads a snippet of it over Berena’s shoulder, and blushes like a boy, which Berena very much enjoys smugly teasing him about for the rest of the day. 

Catelyn gives birth to a daughter, Ned writes, a girl named Sansa with hair as red as her mother and brother’s. Berena promises to visit in the spring, although she does not know if it is a promise she will be able to keep. She and Jaime may be on better terms, but he has no love for Ned, and she is not ready to begin again a fight that they already agreed to put aside once, for both their sakes. 

Prince Joffrey grows fair and strong, and Berena is glad beyond measure that the winter will prevent any travel from the Rock to King’s Landing, or from King’s Landing to the Rock. One peaceful season is all she asks- she will not be able to avoid her good sister the queen forever, but for now, she can pretend that it truly is just her and Jaime, that nothing and no one ever came between them.

Because it is easier, now that they have a child together. Gerold is something to talk about, an endless source of amusement and (occasionally) worry, particularly when he takes his first determined steps, chubby hands gripping his mother’s. “Don’t walk so fast with him, woman,” Jaime says, lounging like an oversized cat on the bed, and Berena rolls her eyes but smiles.

“Woman? You worry like an old woman! And,” she adds swiftly when he draws himself up in typical Lannister outrage, “who was it that I found throwing our precious son up in the air and catching him just last week?”

“I was not in danger of tripping over my own skirts,” Jaime finally retorts, after rearranging his expression of vague guilt. 

“Very well, lend me a pair of your breeches!”

“Mama,” Gerold says insistently, pulling at her hands, and they break off their bickering in order for Berena to take him round the room once again. 

By all rights she should still be furious with Jaime. He lied to her and betrayed her and defiled their vows, although he said them with no faith at all and so perhaps the argument can be made that said vows were worth nothing to begin with. But he did hurt her, and he is not sorry for it- or, he is sorry that his actions hurt her, but it is not as if he is going to swear off Cersei because Berena shed a few tears and screamed at him. And she is not going to ask him to, and put them both through that all over again. 

But he is a good father, and her fears of him taking an approach like his own father’s to childrearing seem unfounded. When Gerold cries, Jaime picks him up just as readily as Berena. When he screams, Jaime doesn’t leave the room in distaste or demand Berena silence him. He may not know what he’s doing most of the time, but then again, neither does she. They are getting through it together, and it’s only natural that this sort of mutual struggle, where they both, for once, want the same thing, would make them… warm up to one another, she supposes. They don’t sleep in the same bed, but they take most of their meals together, smile genuinely when they meet one another’s eyes, play with their child together. 

It is better than anything they had before, and what does haunt Berena is the fear that something will happen to ruin it. Because she does think she could… accept this for the rest of their marriage, even with the cold certainty that it would never become anything more. She could submit to a life of smiles and laughter and Gerold, without resentment or bitterness. But Gerold will not be a toddling babe forever, and eventually the winter will end and the world outside the Rock will come calling once more. 

Still, she looks forward to going out for an afternoon ride with Tyrion and Jaime, mostly because they do not have a company of Lannister guards at their backs- who wouldn’t believe the Young Lion fully capable of defending his wife and younger brother? The roads are slick and muddy but clear enough to ride on, and Berena gives Torrhen enough lead to break into a canter, racing ahead of her husband and goodbrother until their voices fade into rush in her ears.

She is just slowing down when she sees the girl in the snow. More specifically, the girl running through the snow, crying and heaving, and the dark shapes moving after her. Berena stares in shock for a moment at the men chasing the girl, who is desperately trying to keep her footing and reach the road. Then she nudges Torrhen back into a canter, and cuts them off just as the girl slips onto the muddy road, her mount between the men and their quarry. 

The ragged men slow down, their sneering laughter fading as they stare up at what is, to their eyes, a finely dressed lady on an imposing horse. “And who would you be?” Berena is too angry to be frightened; instead she summons up every inch of imperiousness learned from the likes of Genna Lannister and Darlessa Marband, because she is a noble lady of a great house, and she will not be intimidated by the likes of them.

“The question, milady,” one of the men is fingering a blade at his side, “is who would ye be, an’ ‘ow much is that cloak of yers worth?”

The girl is still gasping for breath on the ground, eyes wide and frightened behind her matted hair. Berena tilts her head mockingly as if she is Cersei bloody Lannister, queen of the Seven Kingdoms, herself, and says lightly, because she can hear the hooves thundering in the distance, “I would be Berena Stark, the wife of Ser Jaime, son of Lord Tywin, Warden of the West. My cloak is worth all your weights in gold, and these lands you like to hunt little girls on... would be House Lannister’s.”

“BERENA!” Jaime roars like battle cry, and she hears the rasp of metal unsheathing. The girl scrambles to her feet, the men recoil, paling, and Berena neatly trots Torrhen out of the way as her husband and Tyrion bear down on them. “It’s alright,” she tells the girl, who is clinging to her reins, as the men break into a run through the snow, and Jaime’s steed races past and after them, “You’re alright now. What’s your name?”

“Tysha,” the girl offers waveringly, pushing her thick, dark hair out of her tearstained, blotchy face as Tyrion reins up near them. “Tysha, milady- milord,” she flushes even further at the sight of Tyrion, who looks almost, well, normal, atop his horse, and curtsies awkwardly, pulling at her dirty clothes. “I swear I’m not- I didn’t do nothin’ to them, milady, they just came after me, I’m only a crofter’s girl, but me da,” she flinches, “he’s been gone not a fortnight, and I didn’t have nowhere to go.”

Berena dismounts, pulls off her cloak, and wraps it around the shivering girl, who she estimates to be no older than thirteen or fourteen, around Tyrion’s age. He has clambered down from his horse as well. “You’re safe now,” he tells Tysha earnestly, and then winces when his voice cracks. Berena smiles slightly and shakes her head when the girl tries to hand back the cloak. “I have plenty, and you’ll catch your death out here. Look, your shoes are soaked through.”

Tysha shuffles from foot to foot, and Berena ignores the distant cries of Jaime dispensing his father’s justice to the bandits. “You could come with us, if you like,” Tyrion says in a slightly hopeful tone, and Berena feels for him- he has so few his own age. “We can take you back to the Rock- there’s food to eat there, and clothes-,” he trails off when Berena lays a hand on his shoulder. 

Tyrion’s intentions are pure, but he’s just a boy, thinking as little boys do. Berena may be only newly eight and ten, but she knows they cannot just set Tysha on the back of a horse and bring her into Tywin Lannister’s home. He would have no qualms with Jaime killing bandits looking to steal and rape on their land, but Tysha is… a crofter’s daughter, not a noble lady. Such girls are barely a step above whores and barmaids to men like him, to people like him. Not worthy of any dramatic rescues or kind smiles, to be sure. 

“We’ll go to the village inn,” she says instead, “and get you something warm to drink and eat and see about some new shoes, at the very least.”

Tysha shies away. “Milady, you couldn’t…”

“I can,” Berena says firmly. “You’ve had a horrible shock and you’re exhausted. We can’t leave you out on the road by yourself- it’ll be sundown soon, and it’ll take you hours to get anywhere on foot. My lord husband will meet us there.”

“Is he goin’ to kill them, milady?” Tysha asks in a small voice.

Berena looks her straight in her sad blue-grey eyes and is suddenly reminded of another dark-haired girl, lost on the road. “I’d be very surprised if he hadn’t already.”


	14. Chapter 14

Berena convinces Jaime to set the Tysha, the crofter’s girl, up in the inn for a few nights. He is furious with her for riding up to a pack of bandits, but she knows some part of him took pleasure in his first fight in years, even if it was far from a fair match. Jaime is a good father and, if not a good husband, has at least been trying, since her pregnancy, to seek some common ground between them. 

But he is not suited to lordship; that’s plain as day. He has no patience for ruling or listening to endless concerns and complaints or dispensing punishments that do not require a sword and shield.

So perhaps it did him some good to be able to vent his frustrations on a few rapists. Berena is more concerned with the girl of fourteen that they have inadvertently become responsible for. Tyrion is besotted, that much is obvious, and Tysha is as bewildered and flattered as any young girl would be when a boy shows genuine affection and interest towards her, dwarf or not. 

Were they to leave the two to their own devices, Berena is convinced Tysha would be pregnant with his bastard in a matter of months. Tyrion may be thirteen and no longer a child to be scolded or chaperoned, but he is nowhere near old enough to understand the consequences of his actions.

Instead she sends the girl off to Crakehall; Johanne’s mother’s favorite dressmaker is in need of an apprentice, and learning a trade is a boon to a peasant woman; Berena is not blind. Tysha has no land or property, no family, and no money. Girls like her rarely escape the whorehouse and a life of grueling poverty and abuse. 

At the very least in Crakehall she will learn a trade and be able to feed herself and any future children in the years to come. It may not be an easy life, but it seems to Berena the most she can do without attracting unwanted attention. And taking the girl into service at Casterly Rock would be a disaster in the making.

Tysha is happy to go somewhere with the promise of shelter, food, and protection, if clearly disappointed to leave Tyrion, who likely treats her with more respect and attention than anyone in her short life, but she does not sulk or weep at the notion, and thanks Berena and Jaime profusely for their kindness. Berena sends her with a bag of silvers as well, to sweeten up the old dressmaker and perhaps encourage a few new dresses and a clean place to sleep, rather than a mat by the fire and rags. 

“She may very well end up bearing some lord’s whelp at Crakehall,” Jaime tells Berena, who shrugs. 

“She may. But at least she has a fighting chance to escape that life for now.”

Tyrion is furious with her. Berena cannot really blame him for it, but she has known him for near two years now and they have always been close, she has come to think of him as her own brother, in truth, and it stings, badly, like a slap to the face when he comes to her with all the impetuous rage of someone caught between childhood and manhood. 

“You sent her away,” he snarls, and Berena does not have the heart or dexterity to twist the truth to her advantage.

“I did,” she acknowledges instead, glad they are having this fight in Jaime’s solar and not in her own quarters, where Gerold is napping; he has always been a deep sleeper, like her, but this will not stay quiet for long- Lannisters do not have hushed, frigid disagreements the way Starks might. 

When they rage, the entire Rock hears it- she has even caught the echoes of the tail end of a tongue-lashing of Lord Tywin’s once, and it was enough to make her flinch, an entire floor away.

“You sent her away,” he repeats, as if still shocked himself to say it aloud, “I loved her, and you sent her away from me! She was- she loved me too, Berena! You know she did!”

“She loved you,” Berena says pleadingly, “of course, she did, Tyrion, you were kind and gallant to her, and so clever- how could she not? She’s had a cruel, harsh life-,”

“So you thought to take her away from me before I could make it any crueler?” he demands, face screwed up in fury, “Is that it? With my- deformities and my ugliness-,”

“You know that is not why I sent her to Crakehall,” Berena interjects sharply- she is not even truly angry with him but with his constant self loathing- she sees his heart, not his appearance, his heart and his mind, and so does Jaime, and Ser Gerion, and even Genna- the world at large may judge him a monster and an imp, but he has always been a blessing to her, one initial bright spot in the darkness of Casterly Rock.

“I would have wed her,” Tyrion mutters, sullen now. “I would not have dishonored her, Berena, you know I would have done it properly-,”

“There is no proper way to wed a crofter’s daughter, Tyrion!” Berena barks. “You must see that! Who would have wed the two of you? What septon would agree to it?”

“I am nearly of age, and I am a Lannister!” he shouts back. “Who would have dared deny me my rights? Or is that I don’t have any, as the Imp?”

“You have your rights! More rights than I ever had!” Berena snaps, and she is nearly vicious with him, to her embarrassment. He may be loathed for his very existence, but he is still a man- or almost a man- may still do as he pleases, go where he pleases- to an extent. She struggles to regain her composure, flushed as she is. “But your father is the Warden of the West, former Hand of the King- do you truly believe he would tolerate such a marriage? Tyrion. You know this.”

“Prince Duncan wed Jenny of Oldstones,” he says after a long moment, in a little boy’s rebuked tone, and her heart almost breaks at the sound of it. She wants to embrace him, but he would only push her away.

“You are not a prince,” she says gently in reply. “And your lord father is not King Aegon the Unlikely.”

He nearly sniffles then, but turns from her, so she might not see him weep like a child. 

“I know you did love her,” Berena says quietly. “And she you. You should not be ashamed of it. Tysha is a kind, true-hearted girl. She loved you for your actions and your character, not your title or coin. But while it would have brought you both joy in the short term, to be together, in the end it would have cost you dearly. Jaime would not be able to protect you from your father’s wroth, if- when- he found out. And Tysha is an innocent girl. I could not allow her to…,” she trails off, shaking her head. “It would have ruined her. Through no fault of yours, but it would have.”

He leaves after that, and Jaime enters soon afterwards. 

“You were eavesdropping,” she accuses, with no real malice, sinking into an armchair.

“You handled it well,” he admits. “Better than I would have.”

“You and your temper,” Berena snorts. “I hope he does not hate me forever.”

“How could he?” Jaime looks at her as if she’s being mad again. “You’re the closest thing to a sister he has.”

Cersei’s unspoken presence lingers in the stuffy air of the solar, and Berena stands up suddenly, frustrated. “Has your father still not found any matches for him? He is still a Lannister, after all.”

Jaime shrugs, leaning against the desk he so rarely sits at. “None to his satisfaction.”

“I had thought-,” Berena bites her lip. “Tyrion gets on well with one of my ladies. Alysanne. The youngest one. She’s a warm, silly girl, but the Leffords are a good family. And a loyal house.”

Jaime glances up at her, face creased in concern. “Would she…”

“I don’t know,” Berena says helplessly. “I have never asked her directly about it. But she is still unbetrothed, and only sixteen. And I think it would… do your brother some good, to feel like an… ordinary noble boy, with a betrothed, and a future.”

“You will have to go about it carefully, then,” he says, with a slight smirk. “It seems to require a delicate hand, matchmaking.”

“Nevertheless,” she retorts, “put it to your father- no, your aunt. I’ll mention the possibility to Genna, and we’ll let her do half the work for us.”

“Was that an order?” he gapes in amusement, pushing off the desk and approaching her nearly- they are not flirting, they’ve been married for two years now, they’re long past any half-hearted attempts at that, but there is something- something that wasn’t there before.

A lightness. An interest, almost. Not lustful or overcome, but almost… considering. Berena lets herself smirk back at him. “Should it be?”

She does raise the matter with Genna, shortly before the court at Casterly Rock prepares to depart for Dragonstone. Stannis Baratheon is finally wedding Selyse Florent, and the wedding of the king’s brother, even if he is not a prince, is one that certainly House Lannister, at the very least, will be expected to attend in full force. Berena is dreading it, of course, because Cersei and the little prince will certainly be there, but she cannot leave Gerold behind. 

Dragonstone is incredibly dreary, even if the snow has finally begun to melt. The island is mostly reduced to muddy crags and damp gargoyles. It suits Stannis, to say the least, who Berena has never met before but who immediately registers as a cold, humorless, needlessly stiff young man with a near permanent glower and a rapidly receding hairline. Even on his wedding day, he looks ill pleased and irritable.

Selyse appears no more thrilled than him, and Berena cannot blame her, although she empathizes with her tallness and thinness and limp, straight hair and prominent ears. She appears to be an outsider even amongst her own family, glaring at the titters and snickers of her more attractive, more charming sisters and cousins, who flit about the feasting hall, gazes lingering on King Robert in particular.

Berena sits with Gerold dozing off in her lap, squinting in the torchlight that does little to illuminate the rapidly dimming room, and talking with Darlessa, who has brought little Tyrek, Gerold’s fondest playmate already, although he is off with a nursemaid. She takes great pains not to be aware of where Jaime has gone, because Cersei sits across the room, dripping with condescension, brushing her bejeweled fingers through Joffrey, now a shrill boy of two’s, fair hair.

But then she spots Jaime crossing the room towards her, and from the look on his face she can tell he’s just fought with someone, and she would make any bet that it was his sister, because now Cersei is red-cheeked with fury and filling her cup with more wine, and fixing Berena with a look that is frankly just short of murderous. 

Berena smiles blandly just past her, trying to look like the hopeless moron Cersei believes her to be. Thank the gods Gerold doesn’t look like Jaime much at all; Cersei would likely see it as some sort of challenge, of who can produce the most Lannister child, between the two of them.

Darlessa mutters something under her breath and excuses herself to dance with a Tyrell as Jaime draws near, and Berena unconsciously tightens her hold on Gerold, whose head is lolling against her breast. “We should get him to bed,” she says, before Jaime can say anything, and he nods shortly in agreement.

A few confused stares follow them out of the feasting hall, since they insist on doing this themselves, but it is not their wedding or their brother, and Berena is grateful for the cool air of the dark corridors. She says nothing as they enter their rooms, not wanting to provoke a sore wound, if he and Cersei were fighting.

“Apparently my sister finds it a betrayal of the highest degree, that I deigned to impregnate my wife,” Jaime finally says, as she lays Gerold down in his little cot. 

Berena, for once holds her tongue, and turns to face him with a pointedly helpless look of ‘what would you have me say to that?’. Is he really so surprised? Men are such fools, really. Of course Cersei is offended by Gerold’s very existence. She wanted Jaime in all ways, and him siring other children on other women infringes on that control, even if she knows he is devoted to only her in truth.

“He is my son,” Jaime glances away, nearly ashamed. 

She’s not sure if he’s referring to Gerold or Joffrey until he clarifies, “My only son.”

“I’m sorry,” Berena murmurs, because she is sorry, not that he can only claim one, but that a child like Joffrey will only ever know Cersei and Robert, the two least fit people to raise a child that she can imagine, as parents. She may despise his mother, but Joffrey is just a boy, and all children deserve a happy childhood.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” and he kisses her then, and she is so caught off guard by that she just stands there blankly until he pulls away.

He grimaces. “I didn’t-,”

She shakes her head and cuts him off with a kiss of her own, because it’s not all forgiven and it’s not all right, but she doesn’t care, she has desires too, and he is so vulnerable in the dark, in all the ways he is not in the light, and how wrong can it really be, to want your own husband? Not wrong enough to stop her.


	15. Chapter 15

Berena is so taken aback when, upon returning to the mainland in time for the celebration of the new year, the bells tolling across King’s Landing, Jaime proposes that they travel north, rather than west, she merely stares at him with a befuddled smile, believing this to be some vaguely callous jest. 

“I mean it,” he says, and he is not smiling- Berena likes him best when he doesn’t smile, because she has come to associate his smiles with falsehoods and anger, so when he does look sober and grave she almost- she is fond of him, then, because she knows he is being open and truthful with her. 

She stops refolding the rumpled cloak in her hands- Agnese did not travel with her because she has two little girls of her own now, and her other maids are not nearly as careful and precise- and frowns. “You… you do?”

“It will be four years since we were wed in a few months time,” he shrugs. “I can stomach a visit to Winterfell, if it pleases you.”

If it pleases her. Berena is hard-pressed to find another time when Jaime did something with the express intent of pleasing her- not that he has never pleased her in the past, and he is certainly capable of it in bed, but- but this is different. This is a man’s intentional kindness towards his wife, not a careless gift or boon here and there, a reprieve from this or that, an allowance of some kind. She’s not being rewarded for good behavior, for tolerating him or bearing his child or sharing meals or a bed with him. He’s offering it up of his own free will, not out of a sense of obligation or duty to her.

“It would,” she says thickly, still stunned. “Very much so, I-,” It was not that she had never thought she would see Ned or Cat or the boys again, but more that she had tried to put them out of her mind, aside from the occasional letter, to spare herself the pain. 

She has grown more comfortable at the Rock, no longer cringes to cloak herself in scarlet and gold, but she still misses Winterfell and the North, an underlying ache for the days when she wore her hair loose and free and snow crunched underfoot and the pines were a green blur as she and Lyanna flew past through forested groves on horseback, laughing and yelling.

If anything, her obvious shock and fumbling gratitude makes Jaime even more uncomfortable, and he turns away slightly as if to shield her privacy. “You are not my prisoner,” he says after a moment. “You are a highborn lady and you may travel when and where you please. If you ever wish to see your family, you need only say so.”

Berena exhales shakily. “It would not have sat well with your father, for me to return there before bearing you an heir, and then Gerold was so young…” 

And the unspoken truth that they are both dancing around is that, had she demanded to be brought back to the North two years ago, just before or even in the early days of her pregnancy with their son, Jaime likely would have not only refused, but laughed in her face, partly out of spite and partly out of fear that the moment she set foot behind Winterfell’s walls she’d scream for Ned and refuse to ever leave again. And it was not an entirely unreasonable fear, Berena admits. Her ‘loyalty’, so to speak, was far from assured at the time. It is still not now, but… she is loyal to this marriage, at any rate, and to the vows she made before her gods, if not his. 

“Well,” Jaime says, “he will likely see his second name day in the North, if we set off before the month is out.”

Berena is certainly not going to argue for a longer stay in the Crownlands, not with Cersei doubly furious, since they are saying that Robert deflowered a Florent girl during Stannis’ wedding feast. But the thought of going home- of seeing Ned- she breaks into a childish grin unbidden, unable to restrain herself any longer, and impulsively moves to embrace Jaime.

This is new ground- they have only just started sleeping together out of desire, rather than a sense of duty, and they are certainly not at the point of coy smiles and clasped hands like a pair of infatuated children. She has never willingly embraced him in her life. So she stops, flushing in embarrassment, arms still outstretched lamely, and then he steps forward and presses an almost self-conscious, chaste kiss to her cheek. 

“This is the first time you’ve ever given me a smile,” he says, bemused. “I feel cheated.”

“I’ve smiled at you before,” she protests, cheek still tingling where his lips landed. 

“If by ‘smile’ you mean ‘bared your teeth’, then yes, you have, sometimes thrice over the course of one feast.”

He is teasing her, and it’s such an odd sensation, this sort of light-hearted banter, that she only smiles more, and then he smiles back, but it’s entirely different from his usual smiles- small and thin and boyish, in a way. 

“Thank you,” Berena says, genuinely, trying not to come across as too delighted, but it must be obvious, because his green eyes seem to soften as they track across her form. He has given her his mother’s jewels and new dresses and cloaks and riding boots and gilded combs for her hair and toys for Gerold but this is different, because she is not thanking him as part of some transactional agreement but because she wants to, because she feels thankful.

“Of course,” Jaime agrees, and pauses, as if about to say more, before giving a minute shake of his head. “You may wish to send a raven ahead of us, to give your brother some warning.”

“I have so much to tell him,” Berena says happily, unthinkingly, and then freezes, dropping her gaze to the floor. “I- that is- about Gerold. He… he will be so pleased to meet him at last, and Catelyn as well, I’m sure.”

But Jaime does not snap at her or warn her off, only takes her hand, unbidden, and Berena does not pull away, glancing up at him. “I’d like to see you smile more,” he says. “I know I’ve given you little reason to, in… in the past.”

Berena hesitates, and then squeezes his warm hand in her own, briefly. “We don’t have to be in the past anymore.” She did not take the… beginning of their relationship, at Dragonstone, as some sign that he was forsaking Cersei forever. 

But she knows he spent his nights with his lady wife, during their time there. And he has spent his nights with her since. And if he is willing to return to the North with her, then… perhaps things can be different, from now on. Better. Not perfect, but more along the lines of what she’d imagined, when she thought of marriage as a girl.

“We don’t,” he agrees, after a moment.

They make good time, since they bring only a small party with them- her servants and his men and the horses- they can forsake a wheelhouse without any other ladies, and Gerold is big enough to ride in front of her, although they have to stop frequently so as not to send him into a tantrum. Mostly he sleeps, lulled by the brisk pace of Torrhen’s canter. 

And while summer may be in the air, it is still cold and crisp in the North, and when Berena sees summer snowflakes spiraling in the air around them, her delight is palpable. Even more so when they crest a hill and she sees the Wintertown, and beyond it, Winterfell, looming solemn and grey in the distance. 

“This is where I was born,” she tells Gerold, breath misting in his ear. 

“No Rock?” he sounds surprised.

“Not at the Rock,” she agrees. “Winterfell. Can you say it?”

“Winnerhell.”

Jaime laughs uproariously at that, and Berena smiles. “Close enough.”

When they reach the town Berena hands her son off to his father, gives Torrhen a sharp nudge with her heels, and gallops down, ahead of the rest of the men, her hair coming out of its looping braids and flying into her eyes. Her lungs burn and her stomach cramps but she doesn’t mind, because she knows this place like the back of her hand, has had it in her mind’s eye for years now.

The sun is slowly setting in the mountains beyond, and the villagers draw up in surprise at the woman in the crimson cloak riding through their streets, until a Stark soldier recognizes her, or her mount, and calls out, “Lady Berena!” Then the murmurs and cries start, and Berena allows herself to beam because, once, these were her people, and she the only leader they had, if only for two years. A girl of ten and four. The last Stark. 

She is the first rider into the castle, and nearly slips off the saddle in her hurry to dismount. Then she is face to face with Ned, who looks much the same, if a little more lined in the face, and Catelyn is smiling, holding a red-haired toddler girl in her arms, who smiles shyly, and the little boy at her skirts, standing straight and tall, must be Robb. 

Berena is so overwhelmed that she stands there, struck dumb, for a moment, before Ned steps forward and pulls her into an un-lordly but affectionate embrace, and she instinctively hugs him back, burying her face in his cloak. “I missed you,” she chokes out, willing herself not to start weeping like a child.

“And I you, Beri,” he murmurs, and then they pull back and look at one another, and without saying anything, his grey eyes ask ‘are you happy?’ and she gives a barely perceptible nod of ‘yes’ as Jaime rides up, only holding his reins with one hand, the other arm restraining a very indignant Gerold, who is very much tired of horses by now. 

“Oh!” Berena scoops up her son as Jaime dismounts, and presents him to her brother and good-sister, almost giddily. “Gerold, this is your uncle Ned and your aunt Catelyn. And these are your cousins, Robb and Sansa.”

“Oh,” Catelyn’s surprise is evident, ringing clear in her bright blue eyes; she is virtually unchanged, even after two pregnancies, still as tall and willowy as Berena remembers, if perhaps a bit prouder in bearing. “He looks just like you, Berena.”

“Yes,” drawls Jaime, “but I’ve heard tell that he has his uncle’s scowl.”

And Gerold is scowling fiercely now, aggravated after yet another long day of travel, at least until Berena chucks him under the chin and he wrinkles his pert little nose in dismay. She looks quickly between her husband and her brother; the tension, if not as palpable as during the days leading up to her wedding, is still very much evident, even if Ned’s expression remains composed.

“Here’s hoping he does not inherit his father’s sense of humor,” she says brightly, and whereas a few years ago it might have come across as dry and scornful, at this particular moment it sounds more like typical wifely affection than anything else, and Jaime just laughs. 

Berena knows why Jon was not present when her family welcomed them; he is not a babe any longer, and while she does not think Catelyn has it in her to be cruel to a little child, she cannot blame the woman for not wanting said child, one she believes to be living proof of her husband’s infidelity, standing alongside her own children. Berena can tolerate Joffrey’s existence, but she is not raising Gerold alongside him. Nor does she have to acknowledge him as her husband’s child.

She is led to Jon’s room by a maid shortly before dinner, and she thanks the girl before slowly pushing open the door. For a moment, she could be staring at a young Ned, but not quite. Jon Snow’s hair is darker and thicker than her brother’s ever was as a little boy, his features sharper, his build taller, but she sees Lyanna in the furrow of his brow and the slant of his nose, his chin. He is reading, but he looks up immediately at her presence, and frowns.

“Do you remember me?” Berena asks softly.

He opens his mouth, then closes it, and his book. “You’re my aunt,” he says quietly. “My lord father’s younger sister.”

She crosses the room to sit on the edge of his bed. “Yes. You were very small then. You’re much bigger now- and I have a little boy of my own. Gerold, your cousin. You’ll meet him at dinner.”

“Is he a Lannister?”

Berena’s smile wavers slightly. “Yes, he is. One day he will rule Casterly Rock and the West, the same way your father rules Winterfell and the North.”

Jon nods seriously; he is a much more reserved little boy than Robb, who was all smiles and laughter and excited chatter, directed at Jaime in particular, proper Southron knight that he is, underneath all the smirks. “Are you a Lannister too?”

“I- I was born a Stark of Winterfell,” she says. “I grew up in this castle, just as you are now. I played with your father and-,” her breath catches in her throat, the boy does not know, and it is not her place to tell him, “and our brother and sister, in the godswood. Just as you and Robb play together, I’m sure.”

Jon brightens slightly. “We play lots of games. Only sometimes Sansa wants to follow us around,” he wrinkles his nose. “She’s just a baby.”

“Well, one day she will be big enough to play your games too,” Berena puts a cautious hand on his small shoulder. “Just like Ger- he and she are of an age.”

He seems doubtful of this, but then scrambles down from the bed, smiling slightly. “Robb said Ser Jaime is a famous knight.” He bites his lip. “He said he killed the last king.”

“He did,” Berena says honestly, standing up herself, glancing around the room, the toys scattered on the floor and the window overlooking the godswood. 

“Why?” The direct question forces her to look down at Jon again. He is hovering near the door, curious.

“The last king,” Berena chooses her words very carefully, for children, even children as obviously clever as little Jon Snow, repeat all sorts of things, “was no true king.”

“Not like King Robert,” Jon calls over his shoulder, already bounding down the hall like a small dog. 

“Aye,” Berena follows him, picking up her skirts, muttering, “Not like King Robert.”


	16. Chapter 16

Berena thinks some women were born to be mothers, and some men to be fathers. Ned is just five years older than her, and Cat only four, but they have always seemed much older, especially when held up in comparison to her and Jaime. In some ways, their marriage is under even more pressure than her own- Jaime is still heir to the Rock, not its reigning lord, and has a good deal more freedom to do as he pleases because of it. 

While Berena might not always be in perfect agreement with Lord Tywin and Genna (perhaps rarely in the case of Tywin) she also does not have the added weight of knowing that every important decision about the fortunes of House Lannister is up to her and Jaime. Ned has his advisors, of course, but in many senses he and Cat are very much on their own, and they have made an admirable go of it, turned trials into triumphs, so to speak.

Robb is a well-mannered, charming little boy, and Jon, while quiet and more prone to moodiness, seems to have thus far enjoyed a childhood nearly as happy. Sansa is a hale child of two- she and Gerold celebrate their name days together, three weeks into their stay at Winterfell. Catelyn genuinely enjoys being a mother, and Ned being a father- they are seldom seen without the children, or one another.

It makes Berena happy and sad at the same time, to see Winterfell so light and joyous. She remembers her childhood home as quiet and somber and grey- she has many fond memories of it, of course, but it was not as it is now. Her father was a good man, but he… He was not the father that Ned is. He never mistreated or neglected his children, but he seldom told them stories or came into their chambers to say goodnight to them, either. 

She feels almost like a child herself, utterly safe and content and oblivious to the outside world once more. She had worried that it in some way might taint Winterfell for her, to return to it with a Lannister husband and child in tow, but Jaime, while never entirely at ease within its walls, does a better job of minding his words and keeping his temper reined in then she could have hoped, and Ned is less tense and grim as well, perhaps because their House legacy is now assured once more. He and Cat have two happy, healthy children, and are certainly young enough to have many more.

And they love one another- they are never physically affectionate in front of others, of course, but Berena knows instinctively by the way they pass silent looks and fond smiles, the way they speak of their children together. They were strangers when they wed, and only just starting to grow towards one another when Berena left, but now they are husband and wife in truth, united in a common cause and utterly devoted to one another. She’s glad of it. Surely Ned deserves it, after all he’s been through.

She tells Catelyn as much, as they sit together in a sunny courtyard and watch Robb enthusiastically attempt to teach Gerold how to play Come Into My Castle. 

“You make him so happy,” she says. “I haven’t- the last time I saw him like this was so long ago.” Not since she was a girl of twelve, and he a skinny boy who always flushed red as an apple when he had to ask a lady to dance. 

“He makes me happy as well,” Catelyn is carefully braiding back Sansa’s hair, which is already quite long for a toddler. “Your brother is a kind and true man. I trust him entirely. My mother and father had that sort of marriage,” she smooths back a few fly-away hairs on Sansa’s little head. “And I am so glad to have the same with him.”

They have that much in common; neither Berena nor Catelyn’s mothers ever lived to see their children grown and wed. Or dead, in Berena’s case, which may be a sort of secret blessing. Surely that would have destroyed her mother, or any woman, to love a husband, son, and daughter in such quick succession. 

“And what of you and Ser Jaime?” Catelyn asks both coyly and cautiously, with a slight, hopeful smile at Berena. “You seem… much changed, the both of you.”

Berena can’t fault her- it’s obvious enough to any onlooker, that while and Jaime may not be in the grips of true love, they are no longer at each other’s throats, either. Far from it- a few days prior he kissed her on their way into the feasting hall, and she is certain Ned saw, from the shocked look on his face, and Cat’s blush.

“It has been easier, since Gerold was born,” Berena watches her son’s face set in stubborn concentration; it reminds her of Tyrion trying to work through a particularly dense text, and she smiles wryly. “He… was good for both of us, I think. And Jaime is a good father.”

“He is,” Catelyn agrees, sounding almost surprised. “He’s very fond of the both of you, I think.” She gives Berena a teasing nudge, and it is the sort of girlish gesture she might have received from Lya, once, and Berena’s eyes sting for a moment. She blinks hard, pretending it is only the breeze. 

Berena would like to tell Cat everything, but she can’t, so she just smiles. “We still argue, of course. But I- he’s different from the boy I married here.” It’s odd, perhaps, because Jaime has arguably not been a boy since he was made a knight of the Kingsguard, but she would claim a different sort of manhood was bestowed on him with the birth of his child, a child he could name as his own in the eyes of the gods and men. 

“And you are not the same girl,” Catelyn says. Sansa is staring up at her aunt wordlessly with wide blue eyes and a button nose, and Berena squeezes her small hand. 

“Aunt Rena,” crows the little girl, smiling sweetly.

“Aunt Berena,” Catelyn corrects her daughter. “Look at you, Lady Lannister in truth now.” It is not an insult, but not quite a compliment either. An acknowledgement. 

“I don’t feel it,” says Berena, but her gaze flits to Gerold again. “I hope the next one is blonde. Ger looks more wolf than lion.”

“Yes,” Catelyn agrees, and frowns. “But I see a bit of Lord Tywin in him, too. It’s the eyes, I think. Don’t they look a bit greenish in the right light?”

They spend near two months in the North, and then Berena knows they cannot delay their return to the westerlands any longer, and starts making the necessary preparations to leave. The maesters are saying this summer will be much longer than the last, so she has hope they will be able to visit more often in the coming years. She could never ask Ned to travel south- he will not leave the North again, she thinks, unless it is absolutely necessary. There are too many painful memories south of the Neck.

Three days before they are due to leave she finds Ned in the godswood, although it was the first place she thought to look. She has brought Gerold in here several times, showed him the great weirwood tree and the hot springs, has resolved to make an effort to improve the godswood at the Rock upon their return home. Her gods have been waiting for her, she thinks. She sits down on a rock beside Ned, who is studying his reflection in the shallow pool.

“Thinking about growing out your beard again?” she asks with a little sisterly smirk, and he exhales in amusement.

“Cat likes me better clean-shaven.”

“Aye, and I wish Jaime would try a beard for me, but he’s far too vain,” she snickers. 

Ned stills some at the mention of her husband, although she supposes it is better than a glower or scowl. He and Jaime will never be friendly with one another, that is certain, but at least they can tolerate each other’s presence without it resulting in a duel. She’d rather not have to hold a grudge against her brother for killing her husband, for, famed knight or not, she is certain Ned would win. Call it the last vestiges of familial loyalty.

“You seem happier,” he says. “Certainly happier to leave than you were last time.”

“Last time I was this close,” she indicates with two fingers and an arched eyebrow, “to hiding in the crypts to escape my fate.”

They are both fortunate that she can jape about it now, that the wound is not still sore or worse, festering with resentment and bitterness. Far less has driven siblings apart. Catelyn has not seen her sister Lysa since their respective weddings, after all.

“And what has that fate been?” he asks carefully.

“Oh,” she says, too lightly, “it was truly horrible at first, but he learned quickly.”

Ned gives her a look she has not seen in some time, that of the perpetually exasperated elder brother, and she sighs.

“He didn’t lock me in a cell these past four years, Eddard. We- we were both awful to one another, in the beginning. He was angry to be forced back into the role of heir, and I was… angry to bear witness to it. So we took it out on one another. And it hasn’t been easy. But… as of late, it has been better. After Gerold was born, it was better. Lord Tywin is still… very much himself, and the queen… is not overly fond of me, but the rest of the family has been kind enough.”

He studies her for a moment, as if trying to determine whether she was lying. “He is not who I would have chosen for you,” Ned finally says. 

“I know,” Berena lays a hand on his shoulder. “But my son- your nephew- will rule as Warden of the West. Someone with a Stark face will head House Lannister. I take that for a triumph, brother.”

“It’s a credit to you more so than it is to him that you have found happiness there.”

“Well,” Berena listens to the wind whispering through the trees. “I always was the most charming of all of us, Ned. Remember the time I danced with the Greatjon?”

“He still speaks of you fondly,” Ned groans, and her laughter peals out across the godswood.

Compared to the last time they took this particular route, Jaime is almost withdrawn as they cross the Neck. Berena suspects it is because he suspects she’s saddened to be leaving her home once more. And she is. But it isn’t the brutal twist of a knife in her gut that it was last time, only more of a painful twinge now and again. Her home is where her son is. At Moat Cailin, she puts Gerold to bed, smiling faintly at the sound of the bog settling around them, and approaches the fire, which has nearly burned down. 

Nearby, a few guards are drinking and laughing, the sound carried away by the wind. 

“I think he sleeps better outdoors,” she says, taking a seat beside him. Now she prefers their frames touch when they sit beside one another; she allows herself to lean into him and rest her head on his hard shoulder, rather than sitting ramrod straight and tense, hands in her lap. 

“Perhaps we should move his bed out onto the balcony at home,” Jaime mutters. His fingers find their way into her hair, which is loose and spilling down her back; she let it grow longer than usual at Winterfell, and she’ll have to have Agnese trim it when they return to the unbearable summer heat of the Rock. 

Berena peers up at him, his face hazy in the firelight. “We may have to anyway- I think we’ll need the space.”

Jaime frowns in confusion, handsome idiot that he is, to have not noticed how her appetite has dulled and how tired she was all this past week. He must have assumed it was due to the stress of leaving Winterfell with an occasionally rambunctious toddler in tow. 

“The space,” Berena says, taking his free hand, the one not stroking her scalp, and placing it on her stomach, then moving it down slightly, “for his little brother or sister to sleep.”

His eyes widen, and Berena smiles impishly, and leans up and kisses him quickly, meaning to pull away and laugh before both his hands come up to cup her face and he kisses her deeply in return, pulling her half into his lap, and they have never kissed like this when not in close proximity to a bed before, but she doesn’t care, locking her arms around the back of his neck and squeezing as hard as she pleases in return, his mouth hot on her own.


	17. Chapter 17

Berena gives birth to her first daughter two months after the queen gives birth to hers. Cassana Baratheon is as undeniably Robert’s child as Myriam Lannister is Jaime’s- the raven from the capitol writes of a babe with a head of thick black hair and eyes as blue as the sea. At the Rock, Berena holds a plump infant with hair as brown as her brother and mother’s, but eyes an undeniably emerald green, and a smile that is all her father’s.

She had hoped for a fairhaired second child, but Berena is amused by the combination of Stark hair and Lannister eyes, and the way Myriam is immediately different from her elder brother in temperament- Gerold was a quiet babe, but slow to smile and giggle, just as he is an unusually reserved toddler, peering down solemnly at his sister. Myriam, however is all smiles and burbling giggles, her round face lighting up in joy whenever she sees her parents or brother. 

“A summer child through an’ through, that one,” Agnese declares as she assists Berena in giving her daughter her first bath, and Berena agrees. Gerold was born in a brief autumn, bracing for winter, but Myriam is a child of a summer that, while still young, shows no signs of coming to an end. If Gerold takes after Ned and Tywin, then Myriam is a combination of Berena and Jaime, hotheaded and quick to smile and laugh and certainly not lacking in charm.

Berena had been privately hoping to have a daughter, now that she’s had Jaime’s heir- she had always wanted a daughter, had always hoped to someday raise sisters the way she and Lya were raised, only with a kinder ending for both. Jaime says she grinned like a fool when the midwife declared the babe a girl- Myriam’s labor was, ironically, longer than her brother’s, as if she were in no rush to leave her comfortable position, and she was also bigger. It seems lucky indeed that she was the second child, not the first, although the pregnancy was easier.

Jaime is by all signs just as pleased to have a daughter as Berena, and she cannot detect any difference in the way he treats her from his son- but Cersei’s pregnancy cast a long shadow, and when they did return to the Rock, when Berena was five months gone, to the congratulations of the Lannisters and the news from Tywin, overtly satisfied, that Cersei would soon bear Robert a second child… 

It did not dampen Berena’s enthusiasm for her own pregnancy- in fact, she was quietly relieved, because if Cersei has gotten with child by Robert once, then it may be she has resolved to father all her future children by him as well, and it will be an end to things with her and Jaime. Berena’s desires are selfish- she doesn’t wish this for ‘the good of the realm’ or anything like that, because she has had little love or respect for Robert since he was crowned, and so cannot bring herself to feel much sympathy for the man for being cuckolded. 

She hopes it will be over between the twins because- because her feelings for Jaime have changed drastically, and while at the start of their marriage she could have learned to abide by his love for Cersei, now… Now she does not think she could remain neutral in any sense of the word, were he to return to his sister, return to holding her above all else. He may love Cersei, she may have borne his child, but it is with Berena that he is raising a family, spending every day, happy or not. That has to carry more weight. It must. Berena knows she is being naive. He is fond of her. He is (obviously) attracted to her as a woman, as his wife. They are friendly with one another, have shared private jokes and long evenings. But he doesn’t love her, can’t love her.

Still, Jaime never says so much of a word in reference to Cersei’s pregnancy during Berena’s, and Berena is too fearful of ruining everything they’ve built to speak of it herself. If he wishes to pretend it has not happened at all, so be it. She would rather live in blissful ignorance than drag them both over hot coals by forcing the matter out into the light. 

She does not think it merely coincidence that Cersei happened to get pregnant by Robert shortly after a seemingly explosive fight with Jaime at Dragonstone. If anything could motivate Cersei to willingly lie with her husband, Berena is willing to be on sheer spite. But Berena has Gerold and Myriam and Jaime, and she counts that as a triumph in more ways than one.

Most of her ladies are married now, and Corinne has a boy of one, Dennis, Elara a daughter, Melessa, born only a fortnight after Myriam. They’re no longer able to sit idly chatting on some sunlit balcony, drinking wine- most have households of their own to run, and so she finds herself spending more time with Darlessa, whose son Tyrek is one of Gerold’s most frequent playmates, and Alysanne, who is betrothed to Tyrion and spending more time at the Rock in anticipation of the wedding.

Tyrion seems to tread as though he is walking on glass now that he is officially betrothed to a highborn lady- the Leffords are no Great House, of course, but they are still a well-esteemed family, and have held Golden Tooth for centuries. And Alysanne, of course, is her usual high-spirited self, but Berena knows the same could have been said of her in the days of her betrothal to Jaime, and she would be lying if she did not feel a pang of guilt for perhaps ensnaring the girl in a match she has no interest in.

She is tending to the godswood early into the year of 289- Myriam is just half a year old, crawling happily through the long, whispery grass of the little garden, and Gerold is ‘helping’ Berena clear away dead leaves and branches from the weirwood’s roots. Berena catches him staring at the tree’s haunting expression more than once.

“It’s angry,” he says, as he nearly topples over trying to drag away a branch, little face contorted in concentration. A full year of summer has lightened his hair to a brown an entire shade lighter than Berena’s, and it tends to a curl, like his father’s. Freckles dot his face. 

Berena quickly brings her booted heel down on the branch, breaking it in half, and leans down to steady him so he doesn’t fall flat on his face. He is tall for a two, going on three year old, but he is still so small, and some days she swears she forgets he is no longer a babe, will no longer tolerate being constantly held or even sitting on her lap. If anyone is in a hurry to grow up, it is her Ger, and it scares her more than she’d like to admit.

“It’s not angry,” she says reassuringly, “it was carved in there to warn people that it’s special. The old gods see through trees.”

Gerold frowns. “Why?”

Berena will not pretend to having ever been the most devout practitioner. “This is like a sept, but for old gods. Before the new gods came to Westeros, we said our prayers outside. Your papa and I got married in front of a tree like this.” Gerold is very bright, but she’s not sure if she’s explaining this very well, and he is, after all, not even three.

She glances over at Myriam, who is resolutely shoving grass in her mouth, and is prying it away from her chubby hands when she sees Alysanne approaching, the wind blowing her blonde hair into a frenzy. She is nineteen now, but Berena still sees her as a girl of fourteen, blushing at Jaime and giggling excitedly with Elara. 

“I thought I’d find you out here,” Alysanne calls, brightening at the sight of the children, and immediately scooping up Myriam into her arms. Myriam, to her credit, does not fuss but instead pats at Alysanne’s face, babbling. “Is Darlessa still afraid to set foot in here?”

“It did look rather… foreboding before,” Berena admits, sitting down on a stone bench with an exaggerated sigh. “So I can’t entirely blame her.”

“Well, it looks a good deal less menacing now,” Alysanne grins, glancing around. “I have half a mind to ask Lord Tywin if we might hold the ceremony out here, rather than in the sept.”

At the look on Berena’s face, she bursts into peals of laughter. “It’s just a jape!”

“Enduring one wedding in a godswood was likely more than enough for him,” Berena mutters, watching Gerold swing around a small stick like a sword. He will marry in a sept as well, and all his sister, unless they marry into the North. And as much as she would like such a thing, Lord Tywin has the ultimate say on any marriages of her children, given the fact that he will likely still live when Gerold is old enough to wed. 

“I’m still not sure if he’s happy about this one,” Alysanne reluctantly sets down a squirming Myriam, who begins to crawl over to her brother.

Berena frowns. “He must be pleased to see all his children wed.”

“I think he might be more pleased if I were a bit less enthusiastic about it,” Alysanne snorts, and Berena studies her closely.

“Are you truly happy to be marrying Tyrion?” She hesitates, because how can she not? “You two have always gotten along well, but I know he is…”

“A dwarf?” Alysanne arches a pale eyebrow. She sits down beside Berena. “I know you had a hand in House Lannister putting the matter to my father.”

“Alysanne, I…”

“Was only thinking of his future,” Alysanne shrugs. “I know. And I am not angry with you for it. I have never shied away from Tyrion for his appearance, so why not me? Besides,” she wrinkles her nose, “I am hardly most lords’ ideal wife. Too outspoken.”

“Better too outspoken than a little mouse,” Berena retorts, but then smiles slightly in relief. “Tyrion is like a brother to me, but you have been my dear friend for years now. I only wish you both a happy marriage.”

“I think it will be happier than most,” Alysanne reflects, shielding her eyes from the setting sun. “He doesn’t treat me like a fool or a delicate flower, and I don’t treat him like a freak or an embarrassment. My father,” she says proudly, “raised me better than that.”

Like Berena and Tyrion, Alysanne is motherless. Like Berena, and unlike Tyrion, she holds her father in high esteem, and likely always will. 

“Your father is a good man,” Berena takes her hand. “Who raised a good woman.”

“I do hope we can have children,” Alysanne says, looking at Gerold trying to help Myriam to stand, and stumbling in the process, “or Golden Tooth will fall to one of my uncles. And Tyrion would like a child, I think. He could read to it about dragons,” she laughs.

“And you could teach it how to ride like the wind,” Berena huffs in amusement, and they sit together for some time, watching the sun set over the Rock, bathing it in golden light. Jaime and Tyrion are both in Lannisport for the day, attending to some business of their father’s, and so Berena shares a bed with Alysanne and the children that night, Myriam curled up under her arm, Gerold wedged beside her, comforted by the feeling of their small, warm bodies, the sounds of their breathing. 

When she awakens, it is still dark out, but she can hear the distant tolling of bells, and then one of the Rock’s bells begins to ring, tolling from deep within the mountain, and Berena jolts up in alarm, looking at Alysanne, who is already scrambling out of bed, and darting over to the window, where moonlight still streams in.

“What is it?” she struggles to keep her voice down, not wanting to wake the children, although Gerold is already stirring.

“Come and see,” says Alysanne hoarsely, and Berena extricates herself from between her son and daughter in time to gaze across the plains to the distant lights of Lannisport. The lights, of course, are not torches but the harbor, completely aflame. 

“Lannisport hasn’t been attacked since the Dragons’ Dance,” whispers Alysanne, whose eyes are wide in alarmed awe. 

Berena swallows down the lump of foul panic in her throat. Jaime is there. Tyrion is there. If the city were to fall, the enemy’s eyes would then turn to the Rock and what lies beyond it. “Who?” It must have been an attack by sea, to set the harbor ablaze like that. The Rock would have seen a host approaching from the east or south. 

“Who else?” Alysanne pushes open the doors leading to the balcony, and steps out into the cool night air. “The same as 150 years before. The Ironborn.”


	18. Chapter 18

Berena stays up, watching the coast-line burn with Alysanne, squinting through the dark. As far as one can tell from their great distance, the Ironborn do not push past the harbor docks and market and into the rest of the city. Inside Berena’s chambers, Gerold and Myriam sleep fitfully, but she can only bring herself to check on the children once every hour or so, rooted as she is to the balcony. 

She does not truly believe Jaime or Tyrion is in real danger of dying- they would not have been at the docks in the middle of the night, and Tywin’s gold-cloaks would never allow his sons to come to any harm. But she believed Father and Brandon safe once as well, thought them invincible, fierce and wild and headstrong as they were. And they died within minutes of one another, in agony. 

So she sits, huddled in a robe, waiting, as the sky slowly lightens outside and the stench of smoke grow stronger as the wind blows it towards the Rock, and finally at dawn she sees the Lannister soldiers returning to the rock, and she can clearly see the scattered camps in the surrounding hills, full of frightened people who fled the city in the middle of the night with only their families and nothing else. 

Suffice to say, no one is serving breakfast as the Rock fills with the clamor of armor and horses. Berena dresses swiftly, face pulled into an unpleasant pinch that will not resolve itself until she sees her husband and goodbrother alive and well with her own eyes, and she accompanies Alysanne down to the yard, where she immediately spots her father, Lord Lefford, leaving Berena to pick out the gleam of Jaime’s golden armor in the morning sunlight.

She has not seen him in his armor in years, it seems, and the last time she did he was the Kingslayer and an object of dread and loathing. To see him looking virtually unchanged, although his hair is perhaps a little shorter, momentarily catches her off guard before she picks up her skirts and runs to him as he dismounts, colliding with his breastplate with an ‘oof’ and then frantically feeling at his face and neck.

“Are you hurt?” In the chaos of the scene around them, she does not feel self conscious or embarrassed, and he easily lifts her with one arm to press a kiss upon her brow. 

“Never better.” His eyes are alight in the same way they gleam when they make love- or more aptly put, when their lovemaking is not slow and sweet but desperate and sometimes ferocious. Berena is not so sheltered that she has never heard of fighting and fucking being one in the same for many men, but she has never seen Jaime in the aftermath of a battle before- he is glowing the way Dorna said she was in the hours and days following Myriam’s birth.

Berena wipes some ash from his beautiful hair. “Their fleet pulled back?”

“They only sent in a few raiding parties,” Jaime says. “The rest went to carve their way down the coast. Balon Greyjoy is bold, I’ll give him that.” He is not scowling or stone-faced the way Ned would be, but grinning. Berena cannot understand it, the adrenaline rush men get from fighting, but she imagines it must be like hard riding, only sweeter, to know you’ve lived when others have died. 

“Were there many dead?”

“Far more of theirs than ours.” He has extricated himself from her grasp and runs a hand through his curls. “Father wants to see my uncles and I. He’s summoning our banners.”

“Wait,” says Berena, grabbing his mailed hand before he can go, the metal digging into her fingers uncomfortably, “when do you leave?” There is no question of if he is leaving. 

Tywin Lannister is not the sort of man to tolerate his heir sitting at home while all the Westerlands sets off to join Robert’s host- for the king must be amassing a host to fight the Greyjoys, as soon as news of the attack reaches King’s Landing- and even if he were, Jaime would never dream of missing a battle. 

Ruling bores him, that is plain to see, but fighting- he is like Robert in that sense, and perhaps Brandon as well- some men were born to go out and hack their way across a battlefield, and others, like Ned and Stannis Baratheon, were born to hold down a castle and outlast a siege. Berena cannot fault Jaime for what is in his nature, but she wishes he would at least pretend to be bereaved at the thought of marching off to war again. It has only been five years. 

“Within a fortnight,” he offers a meaningless smile, but then adds, “I will see the children before I go, I promise, Berena.”

She stares after him helplessly, crossing her arms over her chest and wishing he might think of seeing her before he goes. Gods know how long this separation will be. Balon Greyjoy, from what she’s heard of the man, is not the sort to surrender, even if his odds are ill-fated- he cannot possibly imagine that the rest of the Seven Kingdoms will allow a new era of reaving to come to pass. The Ironborn are despised from the North to the South, from East to West. They curse the name Greyjoy in the Riverlands and Reach alike. 

This could be a drawn out conflict that spans all of a decade. She tries to imagine a decade, even another five years of fighting, of lonely nights and fearful days, waiting and waiting and- She has the children now, of course, to busy herself with, but- her life is not just that of a selfless mother. She has her own wants and wishes as well. And without Jaime- she will miss him, more than she could ever have expected, she thinks. More than she was prepared to even two years ago. 

Tyrion is fine, as well, but it is clear to anyone with half their wits that he desperately wishes he could join the fight like the rest of the Lannister men. And were he a normal boy of fifteen, he could- Jaime saw his first battle at fifteen, and Berena watched boys of twelve and thirteen march off to the last war, reckless and grinning and so very young, leaving behind their weeping mothers, many of whom never saw their sons again. But Tyrion is not a normal boy, and while he may ride a horse and read voraciously and even marry, he will likely never see battle. Berena is glad of it, of course. Glad that Alysanne will not have to endure the stress of not knowing whether she might ever be wed, and glad that she will not have to worry for him either.

He retreats to the library with his betrothed- Alysanne is not quite as fond of books as her future husband, but she does enjoy reading to him, which Berena is well aware of because she listened at a door once, and heard them laughing while Alysanne read aloud some particularly foul passage in a supposed account of a dead Targaryen’s many consorts. 

Berena wishes she and Jaime could have had that, before their marriage- some sense of friendship, like that which they have now, but it is always different, because their friendship is in part due to shared responsibilities. They were never truly young and carefree together, and she wishes they could have been, wishes she had memories to turn to of Jaime before his time at Aerys’ court and her before she lost her family. 

But what they have together now will have to suffice. She tries to explain to Gerold what is happening, since he is now newly three, and a clever boy. “Papa has to go away,” she tells him after his bath, while she combs through his light brown curls, feeling his head laid against her heart. “To fight for the King and Grandfather. Do you understand, Ger?”

“Why?” Gerold scrunches up against her in displeasure, and she can feel it in his small frame- all the confusion and outrage and instinctual panic of a child confronted with the absence of a parent. She knows it well, although she was near a woman grown when her father went away. 

“Because he is a knight, sweetling,” Berena says, wishing the word was not so bitter on her tongue. A knight. She knew very few knights, growing up, as one must pledge themselves to the Seven to be anointed, something few Northerners are willing to do. “And that is a knight’s job- to go and fight for his lord and his king.”

“I don’t want him to be a knight,” Gerold declares firmly, pulling away to look at her, narrowing his eyes as if he could will it so. “I want Papa here. With me and Myri and Mama.”

Berena kisses his nose. “So do I. But he… he made a promise a long time ago, and now he must keep his word. Good men always keep their word.” 

She wants, more than anything, for Gerold to believe his father to be a good man, before he is old enough to understand what ‘Kingslayer’ means. It is not her to say whether Jaime has done more good than ill in his life, but she does not want Gerold to ever be ashamed of his family, on either side.

“What’s a promise? Lots of words?” Gerold speculates, jerking away from the comb.

Berena sets it down with a sigh. “Yes. When you promise, you make a vow- it means you will do something, no matter what. Even if it’s hard, or people are angry with you for it. Women make vows to- when they get married, like me or Lady Alysanne when she marries Uncle Tyrion, or when they become a Septa.”

“But you’re not going to fight,” Gerold says, looking a bit relieved, and she pulls him close, tickling his ribs until he shrieks with laughter.

“No, I’ll stay here and fight you instead, little man!”

The night before he is to leave, Jaime goes into Berena’s room to speak with Gerold, and she sits on the balcony with Myriam sleeping in her arms. She thinks it best they speak… man to man, or man to boy, as it be. If- if he has to remember his father, should something… should Jaime not return, she wants him to have this memory, of his father coming to him privately to say his goodbyes. 

She catches the tail-end of the conversation when she slips back into the room to set Myriam down- the girl sleeps like a rock, fortunately. 

“...will you?” Jaime is asking Gerold, who nods seriously, then turns to see her. 

“I’m going to tetch you while Papa is away,” her son informs her. “I promised.”

“Protect,” Berena enunciates, and then wrinkles her nose at Jaime, who is grinning cat-like, unabashed. “Ah, all my fears are put to rest now- the child of three will be my sword and shield!”

“Only the best for my wife,” he jests, and then together they tuck in Gerold, who will soon have to move into a room of his own, in her bed, and retreat to Jaime’s room. She leans against the door and exhales slowly while he undresses, then lazily beckons her over.

“I see you don’t plan on talking much,” she remarks dryly, joining him on the bed

“There’s not much to say,” he is kissing her neck, and her toes and fingers are curling with the heat of it, but she turns from him, trying to find the words lodged at the back of her throat, broiling in the pit of her stomach. There is much to say, but she doesn't know how to say, and she doesn’t want them to fight now, not when he will be gone in the morn.

He puts his hands on her shoulders. “I’ll come back with a few Ironborn heads for you.”

Berena means to laugh in disbelief but it comes out more like a sob, and he lets go of her, visibly unnerved- she has not truly wept in front of him in some time, not since the early, miserable days of their marriage, and she can see his mind racing inside that skull of his, trying to piece together whether she is upset with him or the circumstances, or both. 

“And if you don’t come back at all?” she finally utters, hoarsely, and thinks she should have just let him kiss her instead.

“Don’t say that,” he says. “I’m the Kingslayer, aren’t I? And Greyjoy’s declared himself a king. Two for two shouldn’t be too hard now, should it?” She pushes at him, and he pulls her close instead, ignoring her beating fists. “I mean to come back to you,” he says into her hair, snarled between them.

“Do you? So did my father, so did my brother- gods, so did Lyanna,” she hisses, “and they left- everyone I love, when they leave, they don’t come back-,” and he lets go of her again, and they regard each other warily, as they once did when they were strangers in a bed, and she watches his eyes in the torchlight. 

“You love me?” He sounds mildly surprised, and she is not sure whether to take it for a compliment or criticism.

“And I’m a damnable fool for it,” Berena does not look away from him, because she is still a Stark, who live and die by their honor and their words. “Yes, I love you, you bastard, and if you leave me a widow,” she is smiling horribly through her tears now, “I will never forgive you.”

He is silent, and then, “You would make a very poor widow.” He does not say, ‘I love you too’, but in the early hours of the morning, when he is leaving, and she is pretending to sleep, he sits for a long time on the edge of the bed and runs his fingers through her hair, over and over again, and very quietly says under his breath, “Not nearly as much a fool as me, wife.”

She thinks to call after him one last time as he goes, but instead she closes her eyes tightly and blinks back tears against the pillow.


	19. Chapter 19

Berena welcomes back her ladies, most of whose husbands are fighting in the war, in the wake of the victory at Seagard, less than two months after the raid on Lannisport. Berena has never met a Mallister, as the house is under the rule of the Tully’s, not the Lannisters, but she has heard tell of Jason Mallister, who they say is only twenty five, tall and handsome with flaming red hair and a head for strategy. It must be true, then, for he threw back five hundred Ironborn on the cape and killed Balon Greyjoy’s heir, Rodrik. 

That the first great battle of the Greyjoy Rebellion has ended in a hard-won but decisive victory for the rest of the realm is a relief to everyone. Berena does not think the Ironborn capable of taking (and holding) Lannisport or the Rock, but they are certainly determined enough to hack their way up and down the coast, and Balon shows no signs of surrender, even with his eldest son dead. She prays for a swift end to it. Westeros is still worn and battered from the last war. No one rejoices in this one, aside from the reavers. 

Corinne Estren, formerly Corinne Kenning, certainly has some stake in it, as she is descended from Ironborn herself, and her family now fights against their own ancestors. “Terrence will bring back a Harlaw swords a-plenty,” she scoffs, as Berena and her watch Gerold and Corinne’s little son, Dennis, play in the hills just outside the Rock. “And I told Regenard to watch himself, lest he die before I can give him another son.”

Berena looks at Jaime’s son, whose curls look more blonde than brown in the summer sunshine, and thinks of Myriam, in the safety of the nursery. “I should like to have four, I think, two sons and two daughters.” 

Her childhood was never lonely, with two older brothers and an older sister. Even after Brandon and Ned went off to foster, she still had Lya. She doesn't like to think of Gerold as some man’s squire, but she knows distantly, in the back of her mind, that Tywin will not permit his son’s heir to while away his entire youth at the Rock. 

It will kill part of her to let Gerold go, someday, but she will be able to bear it so long as he is not sent to court. That, she cannot tolerate, and even Jaime would never allow it. He knows as well as she does Cersei’s feelings for the boy. And to have his trueborn and bastard son in the same place… would eventually raise questions, even if the ‘cousins’ look nothing alike.

“Then you shall have four,” Corinne wraps a skinny arm around Berena’s waist. “You’re surely young enough.”

Catelyn is pregnant again, with her third child, she writes to Berena, as the royal fleet prepares to set off from the Arbor and challenge the Ironborn in open water, something few have dared to do in centuries past. 

She only discovered the pregnancy just before Ned left, and Berena feels lucky in that at the very least, she is not going through a pregnancy alone, as Catelyn is. The idea of potentially leaving a child an orphan, were they to lose their father in battle and their mother in the birthing bed, would be too dreadful to consider. 

But if- when Jaime does return, she could have another child in the next year or so. Myriam will be two by then, and Gerold four. Neither of her pregnancies or labors have been so terrible that she would swear off any more children, and while in terms of duty she is fulfilled- she has given her husband a healthy son and daughter- she is only twenty one, and has at least a decade more in which she will be fit to bear children. 

Besides, children never stay children for long, even in times of peace and plenty. She is reminded of this at the wedding of Tyrion and Alysanne most sharply, since she knew both when they were little more than children, but now they are nearly sixteen and twenty respectively. 

And while others may suppress smirks and pitying looks in the sept on their wedding day, which dawns clear and fair and not too sweltering, to Berena’s relief, she stands in the front of this sept she has long disdained, with one child in her arms, the other at her side, and wishes Jaime were here to see his brother wed. 

The wedding is a muted affair with far fewer guests than usual, but Berena is not surprised it was held now, when most attention is transfixed on the sea as Robert closes in on the Iron Isles, and not later, when there would be more mockery, more whispers, and more shame in the spectacle of Tywin’s long-despised dwarf son wedding a woman many consider either a fool for agreeing to such a marriage, or a victim forced into it by her own father. 

Alysanne looks neither foolish nor frightened at the feast, however, and even goes along merrily with her own bedding ceremony, while Berena takes advantage of the crowd around Tyrion, who looks as though he expects to be torn to pieces, to squeeze his shoulder furtively and whisper, “I’ll keep them away from the door.” She smiles at his grateful look, and then promptly leverages her authority as Lady Lannister to order everyone back to the feasting hall to listen to her sing.

Her good brother and his new wife are four months wed when a raven comes bearing news of the assault on Pyke, and as Berena has both a husband and a brother on the same island, fighting in the same battle, she spends more time in the godswood than she ever has before, because it would almost seem too lucky to not lose at least one of them. 

But Jaime must live, because she is not finished with him yet, vexing man that he is, and Ned must live, because he is her brother and all that remains of Mother and Father and Brandon and Lya, and because Catelyn’s babe will need a father. 

Pyke and Balon Greyjoy fall after three weeks of siege, and when Berena hears the news she dances Gerold, laughing, around the room in delight, because the worst has passed, and the realm can collectively breathe easy once again. The Ironborn will not dare rise up again after such a crushing defeat- Balon has all but one son and a daughter left to him, and the boy is to be Ned’s ward for the rest of his days. 

And more importantly, Jaime and Ned are returning, and Lannisport is holding a massive tourney to both celebrate the king’s victory and ring in the new decade of 290- for the maesters say there are still no signs of summer’s end. Berena is nearly excited for the tourney, although the last one she attended, all those years ago as a child, ended in tears and bloodshed for thousands, at least until she hears the queen will be in attendance. 

It seems darkly ironic that no sooner should Robert put down one rebellion than Berena sees another one coming directly for her- Cersei may be wed into House Baratheon of King’s Landing now, but she was born and raised at Casterly Rock, unlike Berena, who did not set foot in it until she was sixteen and wed.

Berena knows she has the loyalty of most of the servants, Lady Dorna, Tyrion and Alysanne, and Ser Gerion and Lady Genna, tenuously. But if she cannot even trust her own husband around the woman, she doesn't like to think of what it will be like wondering if Cersei has set the whole household against her. The tourney will last ten days, and the one bright spot is the brief visit from Ned, before he sets off back for the North.

It speaks to his tolerance of Jaime (and his love for her) that he even sets foot in Casterly Rock at all, albeit looking as though he expects an armed ambush at any moment, but Berena leaps into his arms all the same and forces the children into his arms afterwards and though he only stays a single night, presses into his hands a letter from Catelyn telling him he has a daughter named Arya waiting at Winterfell, before he leaves with his men and Greyjoy’s sullen surviving son.

She greets Jaime’s return as enthusiastically as can be expected, and savors the fortnight they have before the guests for the tourney begin to arrive. “You’ve never seen me ride before,” he notes with a smirk, as she examines bolts of airy summer silk in scarlet, gold, and rich green, for she will need new gowns if they are entertaining royalty. 

“If you get yourself killed on the end of a lance, I will be infuriated,” Berena says snidely, without looking up, at least until he tilts her chin up himself to kiss her. 

“They say a few northmen are jousting,” he says when they reluctantly break apart. “Should I expect to see you wearing Mormont’s favor?”

Berena has only met Jorah Mormont once or twice, and always remembers being mildly surprised to see a man in a house that seems dominated by women. She always got along well with Maege Mormont, gruff as the woman could be, and little Dacey must be at least twelve or thirteen by now. 

“No,” she wrinkles her nose in feigned disappointment, “I like to win too much, my lord. It must be your bad influence.”

Imagine her surprise, ten days later, when Jorah Mormont shatters Jaime’s lance and rides victorious to crown a delicate Hightower maid his queen of love and beauty. But none of that seems very important when there are Robert’s leers and Cersei’s snarls to consider. Robert looks more like his old self in the wake of a second successful war, but he is heavier and redder in the face than she remembers, and has grown a wild beard in his time away fighting.

Berena allows him just one dance at the first night of festivities, king or not, and when one of his big hands trails lower than it should Berena forgets herself and steps down smartly on his foot. Fortunately for her, this show of defiance earns her a roar of laughter from him, rather than genuine anger, and he lets her go to scamper back like a startled pup to Jaime’s side. Jaime, who is steadfastly pretending not to be exchanging venomous looks with his sister throughout the night.

Cersei is seemingly well-suited to motherhood, Berena will give her that. Joffrey, now a boy of five with hair as long as a little girl’s, never leaves her side, remaining perched in her lap all night, resting his head on her breast, and although the girl Cassana is but two and thus confined to the nursery in the evenings, Cersei seems as protective over her as she is of her son. 

But if Myriam was a blow against Cersei, a second, unnecessary child by his Stark wife, and Cassana a blow against Jaime, a trueborn daughter for Robert and a slap in the face for the queen’s twin, then having both children and both Lannisters in the same castle is akin to leaving a lit torch next to a fluttering curtain. Sooner or later, something is bound to go up in flame. 

Berena avoids the queen as much as possible, and to her credit, Cersei keeps her own distance as well, but they cannot dance around each other forever, and there comes a sunlit evening when Berena pushes open the door of Jaime’s solar to find him and his sister screaming at each other, which abruptly cuts off when they take note of her, standing in the doorway, caught between shock and wariness.

Cersei’s nostrils are flaring and she turns to Berena as if looking upon her physically pains her. 

“Get out.”

Jaime has turned away briefly as if to compose himself; Berena counts herself lucky that she didn’t walk in on them fucking, or she’d have Cersei’s hands around her throat right now and Jaime might have to make a binding decision for once in his bloody life. But as it stands, this is her husband’s solar, Cersei cannot force her from the room, and more importantly, Berena is in no mood. 

“No,” she says, as if amused that Cersei would even say such a thing, and then looks to Jaime. “Gerold is asking for you, husband.”

She can feel the rage emanating from Cersei, and she is not so heartless as to not feel for the woman. But she is spiteful enough to take some satisfaction in thinking: There, now you know how I felt, to have to stand by and hold my tongue while you fucked my husband. You can take this, Cersei. This is nothing. 

“Tell him I will be with him shortly,” Jaime all but rasps, and Berena is not fool enough to say anything else, anything that might suggest that she knows the truth, because Cersei has taken half a step towards her as if to strike her, but proprietary yet holds the woman back. That may not be true in the future.

“If you would like to join our sewing circle, Your Grace,” Berena says politely, flatly, Stark face expressionless, “we are just starting.”

Cersei is white-lipped, eyes nearly slits. “I would not,” she grinds out.

“I thought as much,” Berena curtsies to her, but not to Jaime, and leaves them be. At this particular moment, she doesn’t even care if they do sleep together tonight. It will not be a very happy coupling, she suspects, for reasons not entirely to do with her and the children. They have made one another enemies just as easily as they made each other lovers, and she knows Lannisters well enough by now to know that they never surrender a grudge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Immediately following this chapter there will be a serious time-skip to 298 AC.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So everyone is aware of where we currently are, timeline-wise: we are roughly a month or so before the first Bran and Catelyn chapters of AGoT. Littlefinger just bet a certain Valyrian dagger on Jaime (and lost said bet and dagger), Jon Arryn is still alive, and Joffrey is newly twelve.

Berena watches, breathless, as her husband’s gilded frame is tossed from the back of his stallion and slams into the ground, dust coating his bright armor. Around her, the stands break into wild cheers and applause, as the victor removes his silver helm and parades through the lists, grinning. The smell of horse dung wafts through the hot air, not for the first time.

Loras Tyrell is half Jaime’s age, but every bit his equal in the joust, it seems, and a capable horseman at that, handling his preening mount well, both of them spotless, for Loras’ brown curls flow down the nape of his tanned neck, and his pure white stallion has yellow roses woven into his mane. She can see why half the ladies at court are besotted with him, young as he is.

She nearly rises to her feet as she sees Jaime painfully clamber up from the ground, but forces herself to remain seated. No sense in embarrassing him any further than he has just embarrassed himself- he rode well, but to be unhorsed by the Tyrell boy will smart at him all week, she knows, and the bloody fool bet a hundred golden dragons on himself.

Berena, on the other hand, only bet Leonette Fossoway, Loras’ good sister, a golden cuff, which she now reluctantly removes from her freckled arm, turning it over in the sunshine. It’s promptly snatched out of her hands by the child half in her lap. “Lorelei,” Berena says warningly, still irate with Jaime for losing and for the loss of the golden dragons- not that they want for coin, but his arrogance will be his downfall yet.

“I’m just looking,” her youngest says, turning mournful grey eyes upon her- Lorelei is but five, and small and frail for her age, often mistaken for younger. She was born early, and did not have nearly an easy an infancy as her elder siblings- they nearly lost her more times than Berena would like to admit, and she still regards her youngest daughter as something of a miracle… which makes it rather difficult to discipline her properly.

“Well, it doesn’t belong to me anymore,” Berena says firmly, picking up Lorelei and setting her on her hip- she is the only child of hers still small enough to be carried, and Berena is always loathe to let her go. “Let’s give it to Lady Leonette, and find your siblings.”

There’s no need to find Myriam, for her voice carries easily, and she is only a row below, chattering animatedly at Cassana, who is shrinking into herself more and more with every passing moment. The two girls, although both ten, could not appear more different; Myriam is brown haired and green-eyed and all heart-shaped face and snub nose, lively gesturing and flushed in the face. 

Cassana stands nearly a head taller than her, black haired and blue-eyed and too pale for a girl who has only ever known King’s Landing, mouth drawn into a near scowl that reminds Berena of Stannis Baratheon more than anyone else, although her high, smooth brow and long neck are all Cersei. As Myriam goes on, she retreats further, hands clasped stiffly in her lap, staring at the ground. 

After staring in exasperation for a few moments, Berena calls, “Myriam!” and her daughter finally glances over at her quizzically. “Where is Jason?” 

“With Father,” Myriam says, wrinkling her nose, “but I told him to stay in his seat- he never listens, Mother!”

‘Never listens’ is an understatement, when it comes to Berena’s second son. To say that Jason ‘never listens’ is to say that this summer has been ‘longer than most’. Jason does what he wants, when he wants to, as reliably as the sun does rise every morning. Were he not her son, it would be more infuriating than endearing, and as it stands, she still finds herself infuriated more often than she’d like.

Praying that Jaime doesn’t let him get trampled underfoot, she makes her way through the stands to where Leonette and her husband, Garlan, are making their way down the rickety wooden steps to congratulate Loras on his triumph. Berena likes the both of them well enough, especially since they have the slightly giddy presence of any two newlyweds, and even now can barely seem to break apart.

“Ser Loras rode well,” she says, inclining her head to the two of them. Lorelei turns her face away, as shy around strangers as always, nuzzling into the marigold yellow silk of Berena’s sleeveless summer grown. “But I confess I was looking forward to taking home your necklace, Lady Leonette.”

Leonette laughs sweetly, fingering the ruby pendant around her neck, and takes the proffered cuff, a snarling lion head carved in gold, modestly enough. “Your husband certainly made Loras earn his victory well- why, half the court at least must have bet on him.”

“Ser Jaime’s prowess is famed far and wide,” Ser Garlan adds, with a kind smile directed at Lorelei. “Your father is a true knight of the Seven, my lady.”

Lorelei glances at him and Leonette, but only bobs her head timidly, and Berena smoothes back her daughter’s blonde hair, lighter than even Jason’s, who has inherited his father’s golden curls. “We must console our true knight in his loss now, I’m afraid.”

When she finally makes her way through the crowds to Jaime, he has removed his helm and his gloves and has a hand rooted in Jason’s wild hair, steering him in their direction. “You’re not a squire yet,” he is saying, “and I could have sworn your mother forbid you from coming down here not an hour ago-,”

“Jason,” Berena says, narrowing her eyes as she approaches and trying to inject some Stark steel into her usually light tone. “Did I not tell you to remain in your seat, if you wanted to sit further down?”

“I did,” Jason argues, which is always his first instinct, “and now the tourney’s over. If I was Father’s squire, he wouldn’t have lost.”

Jason is seven, going on eight, as he is always quick to add, but tall for his age, and truly believes himself to be half grown already, itching to be equipped with more than a wooden practice sword and a pony. His round face is scrunched up in displeasure as Jaime releases his grip on his hair. “If you were my squire, and not my son, you’d have my boot planted firmly-,”

“Alright,” Berena says quickly, taking Jason not too gently by the arm. “Let’s leave your father to change out of his armor and find those dragons he owes Lord Mace.”

“What?” Jaime cocks his head just so, and she is almost shamed by the way she still manages to flush like a girl and not a woman of thirty, “No kiss for me in my sorrow?”

“Papa,” Lorelei giggles, reaching for him, and Berena concedes and presses a kiss to his cheek as Lorelei pecks him on the brow. 

“Make sure you bathe before supper,” she adds when she pulls away; she can taste the salt of his sweat on her lips. “You’ve got dirt in your hair, my lord.”

“Always a flatterer,” he mutters after her as she turns away, setting Lorelei down on the ground to hold her with one hand. She reaches for Jason with the other, but he jerks away and takes off running for the stands again, likely in search of Tyrek or Lancel, or, she grimaces to think it, Joffrey. 

This tourney is in celebration of the prince’s twelfth name day and the new year, but it’s easier to think of the latter than the former- Joffrey will be of age in a few short years, and judging from his behavior over the past dozen years, will not be any better of a man than he was a boy. Berena finds it difficult to hide her dislike of the boy- he is a product of Cersei and Robert in every worst possible way, well equipped with his mother’s sneers and Robert’s rages. 

Berena does not like to think of the influence he might have on Jason, and is glad that they will be leaving within a fortnight for Winterfell, and that Gerold is well away from all of his, serving as a squire to Addam Marbrand at Ashemark. She is not about to lose one impressionable son to this court where she narrowly avoided losing another to it- Tywin was intent on Gerold serving as a squire to the king himself, much like his other Lannister cousins, but Berena would not have it, and in the end, neither would Jaime. 

Jason is not old enough to serve as anyone’s squire yet, but Berena wants him to foster at Winterfell in a few years time, if Ned will have him. Her brother is no knight, but his hard earned honor will be a good influence of Jason, with all his temper and his fits of arrogance. She loves her son, but she will not pretend he has been an easy boy to raise- he is too much his father’s son, and too much, she sometimes thinks, Brandon’s nephew, the wolf turned lion cub.

Now that the celebrations are coming to a close Berena feels a sense of relief- they have been in the capitol for near a month now, and she cannot stand King’s Landing any better now than she could when they last visited. Myriam and Jason love it, of course, because they are over-eager children who have never been this far from home before. But little Lorelei is a homebody, much like her mother, and constantly asks when they will be returning to the Rock.

“I told you,” Berena says patiently as she supervises the girls changing for dinner- they’ll be eating with Tyrion and Alysanne and their children, thankfully, rather than feasting with the king and queen, “soon we will go north to visit your uncle and aunt, Lory. Don’t you want to see them? The last time we visited, you were just a babe.”

“She doesn’t remember,” Myriam sighs dramatically, playing with one of Berena’s necklaces and draping it around her neck. “But I do, Mother! Uncle Ned is scary.”

Lorelei’s eyes widen almost comically, and Berena shoots her elder daughter a look. “Don’t be ridiculous, Myriam. Your uncle loves you, he is just a different sort than the men you are used to in the West. Northerners are more… reserved with their feelings.”

Myriam huffs loudly, as if she’s not so sure of that. “Well, he never smiles, I remember that. But I can’t wait to see Sansa again- isn’t she so pretty, Mother? I wish I had red hair like her and Aunt Catelyn. Brown is so dull,” she flips one of her brunette curls, pouting. “Even blonde is better- like yours, Lory, or Aunt Aly’s and Cella’s, or the queen’s… Isn’t the queen the most beautiful woman in the whole world, Mother?”

Berena also cannot wait to leave the city so she will no longer have to hear her daughter endlessly heaping compliments upon Cersei, who likely wishes she could throw Myriam into the Blackwater. Some days, Berena cannot blame her. “I imagine so,” she says, trying and failing to keep her tone neutral, as Lorelei speaks up loyally, “I think Mother is the most beautiful.”

“Well-,” Myriam hesitates, and then adds, helpfully, “Mother’s pretty too!”

“Thank you, sweetling,” Berena says, and for a moment peers at their three reflections in the clouded mirror, and then kisses them both. “You both are very pretty as well. Let’s not be late to dinner.”

Tyrion and Alysanne’s two children have both inherited their mother’s Lefford looks- blonde hair and blue eyes, although Berena thinks Myrcella has her father’s crooked smile and Tommen his father’s nose and ears. They are both young- Myrcella is the same age as Lorelei, and Tommen is only three, half-asleep and carried off to bed by a maid halfway through dinner. 

While the children play in the next room, laughing uproariously at some impression of Jason’s, Berena absent-mindedly strokes Jaime’s hand with her thumb and inquires as to Tyrion and Alysanne’s plans now that the tourney is over.

“I’ve had my fill of travel,” Alysanne remarks wryly. “By the time we return to the Rock, Myrcella will be arranging her and Tommen’s betrothals.”

“Precocious is the word for it,” Tyrion supplies, and then gets in another jibe at Jaime about his loss- “Still killing Loras Tyrell in your head, brother?”

“Maiming,” Jaime says darkly, taking another sip of his wine, and Berena lays her head on his shoulder in mock comfort. 

“Come now, he’s only sixteen- there’ll be plenty of tourneys for you to grind him into the dirt.”

“He’s a Tyrell,” Alysanne quips, “they seem rather adept at growing back out of the ground.”

“Our lord father is taking Cersei and the children back to Casterly Rock for a visit,” Tyrion says, “I’m not sure I’ll survive the journey- Joffrey truly is a little shit.”

“He is your future king,” Alysanne laughs, and Berena forces an amused smile onto her face, noting Jaime’s minute stiffening beside her. 

“He’s simply spoiled,” she says. “I worry more for Cassana- she’s so…”

“Grim?” Tyrion offers. “I’d be too, were my older brother such an unbearable plague on House Baratheon- fortunately, he is an unbearable plague on House Lannister, instead.”

“Very funny, little brother,” Jaime scowls, but takes Berena’s hand in his. “We should retire- we’ve several long days of packing ahead of us, since my wife is intent on dragging us into a frozen wasteland.”

“It’s still summer in the North too, you know,” Berena says in mild outrage, but lets him pull her out of her seat, bidding goodnight to Tyrion and Alysanne.

The children are tired by the time they make it back to their own apartments, and Berena sees Myriam, Jason, and Lorelei to their respective beds, although she knows they may all end up sharing one before morning, and then returns to her and Jaime’s rooms. It is the same one they shared during that first visit to King’s Landing, just after Joffrey’s birth, and she always feels a certain uneasiness in it.

Jaime is sitting up waiting for her, rather than already asleep, and she undresses swiftly and curls up beside him, laying her head back against his chest and wishing they were already gone from the Red Keep. Cersei is in this room with them all the same, no matter how much distance they might put between each other, and Berena wants to be free of that particular shadow sooner rather than later. They’ve already been here too long.

“You’ll win the next tourney,” she tells him. “You’re not an old man yet, husband.”

“You’re no old crone either,” he cups her breast with one hand, and she relaxes into it for a moment, but then stops his other hand from trailing down between her legs. 

“Not tonight. I forgot to take my moon tea this morning.” She was too busy scolding Myriam and Jason about sneaking off somewhere again. 

“You can take it tomorrow,” he says in her ear, but she shakes her head and turns to face him. His languid smile fades at the look on her face. “Berena,” he says, but she knows what he is going to say, because they’ve had this conversation many times before, and just looks away.

“It’s been three years,” Jaime presses on all the same, “you’re still young, we can try again-,”

“I don’t want to try again,” she says swiftly, harshly, putting an end to it once again, and leaning over to blow out the candle on the bedside table. “I have everything I ever wanted, Jaime. That’s more than enough.”

The room sinks into darkness and silence as she extinguishes the flame.


	21. Chapter 21

Berena leaves the city with Jaime and the children six days after the tourney’s end. They are spending the night in Harroway, near the Ruby Ford, a fortnight later when she first hears word of Jon Arryn’s death. She thinks there must be something about the Riverlands and bad news- she remembers it as a cool, wet, slightly eerie place of rolling green hills and rushing streams from her time at Harrenhal, and it is little different in the summer, even if the hills and fields are now dotted with wildflowers, and the weather milder. 

Arryn’s death means little to the children, who had only met the man a few times. Berena is saddened, of course, because as far as she can tell, Jon Arryn was a decent man and a decent Hand, but any semblance of grief is far overshadowed by what she knows is coming now. Robert cannot leave the realm without a Hand for long. He needs chose another lord to fill that place on his Small Council, and she does not think he will turn to Stannis.

No, she would stake her life on Robert looking to the North. To Ned. He may not be immediately setting off for Winterfell, not with Cersei and the children traveling west at this very moment, but he will be in Winterfell within a few months. And that means Berena needs to get there all the faster, so she can (hopefully) dissuade her damnably loyal brother from letting Robert bully him into accepting the position.

Ned swore he’d never go south again after the war, and he has kept that vow. Berena had no such luxury- she didn’t have a choice, hasn’t had a choice in many years now, even if she has come to terms with it. But she would rather throw herself into the Blackwater than see Ned at court, watching King’s Landing wear away at him until there is nothing left. He may be Warden of the North, but he knows nothing of southern politics, or the lions that lounge around Robert;s throne room, waiting to pounce at the moment you least expect it.

Jaime is considerably less concerned, but he doesn’t see- or chooses to ignore- the looming danger that Berena does. And to an extent, why should he? He and Cersei may have been at one another’s throats for years now, but that does not change the fact that the queen would never move directly against him, nor he her. The bonds of kinship go deeper than that. Loathe as she is to compare the two, Berena does not think Cersei could any more directly harm Jaime than she could hurt Ned, even if someone had a blade to her throat.

Unfortunately, traveling with three rambunctious children takes much longer than traveling by themselves or even with a toddler. Lorelei rides with Berena, and Jason with Jaime, but Myriam is old enough and tall enough to have a pony of her own, and while she rides well for her age, she cannot hope to keep pace with the rest of the party. They still make quicker time than Robert would, but Berena is noticeably tense and short-tempered until they reach the outskirts of the Neck and the children begin to complain of the cold. 

By the time they are within a day’s ride of Winterfell, she feels as if a weight has been at least partially lifted off her shoulders, and she is more patient with both the children and Jaime, even racing Myriam through the frosty moorland. When Winterfell once again looms in the distance, solemn and ancient and grey, Myriam’s shrieks of laughter quiet and even Jason stills. The last time they visited was four years past, when Lorelei was little more than a year old and Gerold only eight. Now Berena’s youngest glances up at her with her wide Stark eyes in her distinctly Lannister face, and says, almost fearfully. “It’s so old I can feel it, Mother.”

Good, Berena thinks, because it proves her children’s blood still runs just as northern as hers, Lannisters or not. But instead she only presses a dry kiss to Lorelei’s cool brow. “This is where I was born, sweetling. Where your father came to wed me.”

“It was even colder then,” Jaime says dryly, and Jason snickers, the momentary spell broken. 

They reach the castle near sundown, and Berena dismounts more slowly than she would have liked, since Lorelei is clinging to her, and only barely manages to array the children into something approaching a presentable group as Ned steps forward. “Berena,” he breaks into a smile as she embraces him soundly, and then she pulls back, the words spilling out-

“Ned, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Lord Arryn-,”

His face tells her everything she needs to know. “We received word three weeks past,” Ned says somberly. “But thank you for seeking to tell me in person, Berena. I know it must have been after you left King’s Landing.”

She wants to begin a detailed account of the entire journey, but there are still customs to be obeyed, as much as they are siblings, so instead Berena restrains herself, steps back beside her husband, and curtsies neatly. “Lord Stark.” The children somewhat hesitantly follow suit. 

“They’ve grown,” Ned sounds almost shocked by the change in just four years. “Myriam, you look nearly of age with Sansa now.”

Myriam flushes prettily, and chirps, “Thank you, uncle.” 

“I’ve grown too,” Jason adds defensively, and Catelyn laughs softly, ushering the Stark children forward. 

“That you have. Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran- where is Rickon?”

“Playing with Shaggydog,” Arya shrugs. Berena remembers her as a skinny little girl of four or five, always covered in dirt or dust, her hair a tangled mess, eyes sharp. She is much the same, if a little more neat in appearance, and her hair is longer, braided roughly down her back, a few strands escaping around her thin face. 

“She looks like you did as a girl,” Ned says in amusement, seeing Berena’s stare at her niece, and she laughs. 

“Aye, brother. Are you still a wild little thing, Arya?”

The girl’s mouth puckers in a defiant scowl, before her older sister elbows her and she glances down moodily. “No.”

“You’re as bad a liar as I ever was,” Berena snorts, and then glances at Sansa, who is already whispering back and forth with Myriam. The redhaired girl is much taller than she remembers; she looks older than eleven, closer to twelve or thirteen already, and she is very much Catelyn’s daughter, although her hair is more coppery than her mother’s, and thicker and curlier as well. Berena feels for Arya; she too was once the plain younger sister of a beautiful girl. She still is, in some sense.

Robb looks near a man now, but Berena is glad to see his smile is just as obliviously boyish as it was the last time she saw him, and his auburn curls have grown out, framing his face. He has Brandon’s square jaw and thick neck, even if his hair and eyes are all Tully. Bran is a sweet little boy, his bangs falling into his deep blue eyes- many a girl will fawn over them, when he is a bit older and taller. And Rickon, when he is finally caught, is a little storm of ruddy hair and freckled skin, and Berena loves him immediately, because he looks a bit like Gerold did at that age, aside from the hair and eye color.

And then there are the direwolves. 

“I always thought your brother was mad with honor,” Jaime says as they wash up for dinner that evening, “but now I see that he’s just mad, to bring those beasts inside his own walls. That big black one will bite off a few of the littlest boy’s fingers before long- if not his whole hand.’

Berena is torn between an instinct to defend her brother- and her house’s sigil- and the practicality of the matter. Jaime does have something of a point. Direwolves were never intended to live among men, and while the children seem to have a good handle on them, the wolves are still just oversized pups. When they reach maturity, it may be very different.

“Ned would never have permitted the children to have them if he truly thought they were dangerous,” she says instead, although it sounds a bit weak, even to her own ears. Lorelei was immediately terrified of the wolves, clutching at Berena frantically, and even Myriam paled and backed away at the sight of Sansa’s Lady prowling around her mistress. Jason put on a brave face, of course, but she could see him tense up all the same.

“How could they not be dangerous?” Jaime demands. “They’re not dogs- gods, you won’t even let Jason have a hunting hound!”

“That’s because Jason is seven,” Berena rolls her eyes and runs her fingers through her still-damp hair, “and not nearly responsible enough to look after another living creature- he’s too rough and too wild-,”

“Rickon is three,” Jaime says flatly, and she eventually concedes that he might have won his first argument with her in months.

It doesn’t feel right to immediately approach Ned about refusing Robert- not when he is grieving the loss of a man who was like a father to him. Berena is not that insensitive, so instead she focuses on ensuring that her husband doesn’t inadvertently or very much purposefully provoke her brother and their host, and on spending time with her nieces and nephews. She never had much of an extended family growing up, and she wants things to be different for her and Ned’s children.

Jon doesn’t spend much time in his chambers anymore; she rarely sees him apart from Robb and Theon, and when she does, Berena finds him in the godswood, tossing stones into one of the still pools. He’s tall for his age, and combined with his long face he looks older than Robb, older than fifteen. And he looks so like Lyanna, although Berena supposes her vision could be clouded by memory. Yes, he’s built like Ned, has Ned’s nose and jaw, but his eyes and brow are Lyanna’s, perpetually troubled, slightly defiant. 

“Your cousin Gerold likes the godswood at Casterly Rock,” she says, taking a seat on the stone beside him. “He says it’s the quiet. I’m afraid there’s little of that in the castle itself- it’s always so busy, so many people coming and going… I’d almost forgotten how peaceful Winterfell is.”

Jon eyes her warily; she does not know if it because he is a boy of fifteen and naturally distrustful, or because he is a bastard, used to cruel comments and cold silences at his expense. She has always been kind to him, even loving, but she was not here to see him grow up. To think of Lyanna’s child being so near manhood is unnerving. Her sister is forever a girl in her mind. Jon is nearly as old as his mother was when she died. And he still does not know.

Berena wants to tell him, more than anything, not just because she thinks he deserves the truth but because she wants to share her memories of Lyanna with someone other than Ned, who can barely bring himself to say their sister’s name aloud. Why, her own children probably know more of their aunt than his- but that is Ned’s decision to make as their father, and while he may not have sired Jon, he is still his father. Berena will not betray him in this.

“Gerold doesn’t worship the old gods,” Jon says at last; she’s startled by how much his voice has changed. It’s still reedy enough to be a boy’s, but she can hear the huskiness of a man settling in. He doesn’t sound like Ned did as a boy; he sounds more like Brandon to her. Few live who could remember Brandon’s voice. 

“Not in truth,” Berena acknowledges, “he is a Lannister, and the people he will someday rule would never tolerate a northern lord. But he does respect them, as do his siblings. You and him would get along well- you are both… thoughtful boys. I wish he could have come with us on this trip, but he is a squiring for Lord Marbrand.”

Jon stiffens; he will likely never be a squire. Berena knows this and regrets mentioning it. She thinks to put a hand on his shoulder, but hesitates. “There are many paths ahead of you, Jon,” she says instead. “You are clever and brave, and I know whatever you decide to do, you will do it well and with honor.”

“Lady Catelyn wants me gone,” he mutters, to the ground, rather than to her. “Someday Robb will be Lord of Winterfell, and Father… Father will be gone, and there will…” 

There will be no place for him here. 

“My brother is still young enough,” Berena says, wishing he’d look at her, and wondering if he wonders what his mother might have looked like, who she was, how she met his father. “You have many, many years before you have to worry about such things, and you will be a man grown by then. You may even have a family of your own-,”

He stands up suddenly, scuffing at the dirt the same way Jason does when he’s sulking. “Don’t, Aunt Berena. I know who I am.”

She freezes in place.

“I’m a Snow,” he continues roughly. “And that’s it. I’ll never be anything else.”

“You are a Snow to the world, but you are a Stark at heart,” Berena murmurs, wishing her eyes didn’t sting so badly. “You know it, I know it, and your father knows it. No matter where life takes you, you must remember that. I love you as my nephew, regardless of your birth, just as I love your father.”

Jon stops, biting his lower lip, or chewing on the inside of his cheek, more likely, and then glances over at her. “Did he ever tell you? About my mother?” His voice cracks slightly. “Do you… do you know who she was? If she’s alive?”

“We never spoke about your mother after he brought you home,” Berena says as honestly as she can, hating herself and Ned and Robert and Rhaegar most of all for this mess. “But he loved her, Jon.”

And so did I, she thinks, and plucks up a pebble to sink into the pool.


	22. Chapter 22

Berena cannot honestly say she ever again envisioned herself doing needlework at Winterfell, but she feels compelled to spend time with her nieces, particularly in the wake of Robert and Cersei’s arrival in the North. Besides, the alternative is spending time with the queen, something that is best avoided for everyone’s sakes.

Now she sits in a small tower room alongside Sansa, who is whispering back and forth with Myriam and Jeyne Poole, Arya, who is glowering down at her stitches, and Cassana, who sits with her neck bent stiffly over her own work beside Septa Mordane. Lorelei is playing with dolls with Beth Cassel on the floor at their feet in companionable silence.

She glances down more closely at Arya’s work; her stitches are shoddy, it’s true, if not for lack of trying. But it’s obvious that the girl has little patience for it to begin with, especially with the way she’s fidgeting in her seat. Berena tries to hide a smile as Arya sets down her needle and leans in to listen to whatever Sansa and Jeyne are gossiping about- Joffrey, no doubt. To anyone over the age of sixteen, the boy is intolerable, but Sansa is but a child.

Berena is more concerned that a betrothal between Joffrey and Sansa might be in short order. But she can hardly beseech her brother and his wife to toss away the chance of their daughter being queen. Sansa would likely make a fine queen someday; the girl is charming and courteous, and when it doesn’t concern her ongoing war with her younger sister, quite kind. But Berena would not wish a lifetime at Joffrey’s side on anyone, least of all her own niece.

But she was once a girl giggling over boys with friends, so she doesn’t take it upon herself to give them a stern look or sharp word. They have all the time in the world for needlework, after all. But she does look over quickly when Arya snaps something back at Sansa, and the Starks’ septa comes over to inspect the girls’ work.

“Arya, Arya, Arya,” Mordane is sighing, “this will not do. This will not do at all.”

Berena feels a pang of sympathy at the way the skinny little girl stills and flushes in embarrassment. “I am sure you can try again, Arya,” she begins, reaching for her needlework, but the girl jumps tearfully out of her seat and bolts for the door, prompting stares and murmurs from the rest of the ladies present.

“Arya! Come back here this instant!” Mordane calls after her in shock, but Berena rises to her own feet, smoothing down her pale blue skirt, and adopting a more grave look than she feels. The whole thing is ridiculous, really; there’s no need to shame a child of nine over her sewing, and nothing good can come of constantly comparing Arya to her sister. Berena knows the sensation of always coming up short all too well.

“I’ll speak with her, Septa.”

The older woman inclines her head in deference, despite her obvious agitation, and Berena narrows her eyes at Myriam when she stands far too eagerly. “Stay here and share some of that violet thread with Princess Cassana.”

Myriam pouts but flounces over to Cassana instead, who doesn’t look any more pleased to be sewing than Arya was. Berena lifts her skirts as she walks quickly down the winding tower steps; Arya’s direwolf, Nymeria, named after the famed warrior queen, is missing as well, but they can’t have gone far. 

She finds her overlooking the training yard with Jon, watching Jason and Bran fight. Arya reddens guiltily at the sight of Berena approaching, and looks ready to bolt off again, but Jon offers a slight smile. Berena smiles back at the two of them, and Arya settles on her perch somewhat, while Berena cautiously lets Nymeria and Ghost sniff at her fingers and shoes. She still isn’t sure how to feel about the direwolves, but thus far there haven’t been any serious incidents. 

“Jason fights well,” Jon says, as Berena peers down at the scene below. Both boys are red-faced and panting, both from their spar and all the layers they’re wearing to blunt the force of the blows from their wooden swords. Berena resists the urge to call down to her son; Jason would be mortified, and instead watches beside her nephew and niece. 

Thus far, Jason seems to have the upper hand, if only due to pure intensity, rather than any display of skill. Bran likely doesn’t have anyone his own age to practice with most of the time, with Robb and Jon being so much older and Rickon too young, whereas Jason has grown up playing with plenty of companions to smack at and wrestle with. 

“He fights like a wild cat,” she says dryly, watching as the boys kick up a cloud of dust in their frenzy.

“You see Prince Joffrey?” Jon is asking Arya, nodding at the heir to the throne.

Berena steadily follows his gaze; Joffrey looks as contemptuous as ever, leaning against a wall, arms folded across his chest. Jon is pointing out the boy’s coats of arms to his sister; Joffrey has always worn Baratheon and Lannister together. Were Berena his mother, she would never allow such a thing, especially given the boy’s looks. But thank the gods, he is no son of hers. 

“He has always been close with his mother the Queen,” Berena says. “King Robert wishes he were more interested in fighting, I think. The prince has rather a fondness for his crossbow instead.” And for aiming said crossbow at anything that moves; if the day ever comes that he points it near one of her children, even in jest, Berena is quite sure she will smash it to pieces, preferably over his thick head.

“The prince has rather a fondness for being a shit,” Jon mutters, and then freezes, and she knows he forgot he was in the presence of a lady. Berena doesn’t terribly mind. She gives him a look that makes a mockery of genuine disapproval, and patiently ignores Arya’s snickers, turning her attention back to the yard.

Jason has finally knocked Bran off his feet, and delivers another stinging blow as the red-haired boy struggles to his feet. She opens her mouth to yell down for him to lay down his sword immediately; he’s clearly won; but it is not her place and she will never hear the end of it from Jaime if she does. Instead she scowls, focusing the heat of her stare on the back of her son’s blond head, as Ser Rodrik ends the spar.

The grizzled knight is asking Robb and Joffrey to go again as she turns to face Arya. “You shouldn’t have run out like that, and you must never do so in the presence of the queen- we’re both lucky she was not there,” she tells the girl seriously. “But needlework is not the end of everything, Arya. Don’t let Septa tell you otherwise.”

“It’s stupid,” Arya wrinkles her nose, and Jon snorts.

“I thought similarly at your age,” Berena squeezes the girl’s skinny shoulder. “But you may find it useful later on in life. Especially when winter comes- there’ll be not much else to do.” Of course, Arya has never seen winter, and Jon likely barely remembers the last one. She can see from their bemused expressions that they don’t understand. They will in time, she thinks.

Below, a fierce argument is breaking out between Robb and Joffrey, to no one’s surprise. Berena sends Arya off to face her mother and septa, and looks to Jon. “I’ve heard tell you plan to join the Night’s Watch.”

He says nothing, then nods stiffly.

“Would I could take you into my household,” Berena exhales wearily. “But I do not think you would find the westerlands much kinder to a Snow than the North, Jon.”

“I’ve made up my mind,” he says firmly. “I’m leaving when my father does.”

Ned plans to travel south. Berena knows she cannot talk him out of it; he feels honorbound to obey Robert’s wishes. She did try to speak to him of it, several days past, but it was like talking to a rock. He is determined to see it through, and Catelyn seems to agree, although Berena cannot help but feel that there is something else going on there- she’s not sure what, but… It is only a feeling she has. It would not be the first time a sibling left her in the dark.

But if Ned is going to court, then she must as well. She is already dreading it; it would be easy to scurry back to the Rock with the children, but Sansa and Arya and Bran will be in need of companions, like Jason, Myriam, and Lorelei, and she cannot simply abandon her brother to King’s Landing. Besides, he may be a much needed buffer between her and Cersei, and Cersei and Robert. She does not plan to stay there long; several months, perhaps, and then she must return home and see Gerold before he grows any taller in her absence, but it will have to be endured. She’s trying not to dwell on it much.

Jaime disagrees with the notion of not making west straightaway, but not vehemently enough to force her hand, even if she did suggest he visit the Wall with Tyrion, who accompanied the court north, leaving Alysanne to visit her aging father with the children. Jaime refused, of course. She prefers to believe it was because he wanted to stay with her and their children, and not because it was in the opposite direction of Cersei.

With any luck, Ned will last barely a year as Robert’s Hand before stepping down and relinquishing the position to someone else, and the whole thing will be put to rest. The south is no place for wolves. Berena still believes that, even after all these years. Stark blood could never tolerate the Red Keep for long.

But she cannot shake the growing sense of foreboding, ridiculous as it is. Jon is going to the Wall. Ned is going to court. There are direwolves in Winterfell and the queen is far too content as of late. Something is wrong. Something is wrong and she doesn’t know what, because her children are healthy and hale and her marriage is enjoying a long-awaited peace and the realm is prosperous, but something is wrong.

She tries to smile at Jon, but it comes across forced, and she sees the look in his solemn grey eyes. “I have to go,” he says. “You see it, Aunt, don’t you? I can make a name for myself there. Be my own man.”

You are not a man, she wants to shake him, you are a boy, and this is not a decision that should be made at fourteen. But she is not his mother to scold and forbid him. He has no mother. She swallows hard, and nods. “Be safe, please. Write me when you arrive- the children will love to hear of your and Tyrion’s adventures.”

A fortnight later, she wakes the dawn before they are all set to depart to find Jaime still asleep beside her, although he stirs slightly as she nestles closer to him, draping a leg over his. “I thought you were going on the hunt,” her breath mists against the back of his neck. Distantly, she can hear the men riding out. Even Tyrion, who has no particular fondness for them, is going.

He murmurs something before rolling over to face her. The pale light in the room makes his hair appear even lighter, but she is convinced she will start to grey before him. “I found better hunting here,” he murmurs, and pulls her down by the arm to kiss him. Berena smiles against his mouth and slips atop him, gasping at the chill when he hitches her chemise over her head. 

She tosses it aside and reorients herself as he moves under her, eyes brightening. “Don’t be so sure that you’re the hunter,” she teases, and then yelps when he bucks underneath her, laughing.

A few hours later, she is playing with Lorelei outside the glass houses, drawing in the dirt with sticks, when she hears a familiar footfall and turns to see Jason approaching, looking put-out. He was already upset that he was too young to go along on the hunt; Joffrey was teasing him terribly over it. “What is it?” Berena says, straightening up from her and Lorelei’s creation.

“I can’t find Bran anywhere,” he complains, sitting down on a stone bench.

“I thought you were going to work on your archery with your father today,” she says mildly, dusting her hands off. Lorelei is humming to herself as she draws a crown on the head of the dirt-queen. 

“We were, but then Bran wanted to play hide-and-seek. He always cheats,” Jason scowls. “He just climbs up onto a roof and runs off!”

“Then you’ll have to get better at climbing,” Berena finds it difficult to hide her amusement, although she knows she’ll regret saying that when Jason is precariously dangling from some gargoyle. But they’re leaving tomorrow, after all. How much trouble could he possibly get into in one last day?

“It’s not funny,” Jason declares, kicking at pebbles. 

“Where did you last see him?” Berena asks, humoring him.

Jason opens his mouth to answer when a mournful howl cuts through the quiet mid-morning air. Berena pauses, skin prickling. Another howl. 

“That’s Bran’s wolf,” Jason says instinctively. She doesn’t ask how he can tell. The howling goes on and on. Lorelei has stopped humming, and is crouched motionless on the ground. When she looks up at Berena, there are unexplained tears in her eyes.

Berena does not know when she starts moving, but all of a sudden she is running as fast as she can in the direction of the godswood, mindless of her skirts and the dirt flecking onto her fine boots. The comb in her hair, an old gift from her husband, clatters to the ground and her thin braids swing loose. Jason yells after her and Lorelei gives a sharp, fearful cry, but she does not turn back for her children.

She races into the godswood, looking around wildly. The howling is louder but neither Bran nor his wolf are here. She turns left and pushes roughly through a gate, ducks under an archway, and finds herself in the shadow of the old broken tower. Lyanna once dared her to spend the night in it. Berena only lasted a few hours. The crows always terrified her. A few circle overhead, cawing, and she looks across the small courtyard and sees the crumpled form on the ground, the wolf standing over it protectively, howl after howl tearing from its throat.

Mayhaps he only fell a short distance, she thinks desperately, mayhaps- but as she draws nearer she sees the bent of his legs, his back, and looks down at his pale little face and she knows. “Mother!” Jason is behind her. She whirls around to block his view of his cousin. “Go get Lady Catelyn,” she says hoarsely, and she sees the way his face changes, upon seeing her numb expression. “Now.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Jason demands, and she hears the tearful edge to his young voice. “Bran!” He tries to push past her, but Berena takes him hard by the arm and digs her fingernails in, which she has never done before, and says forcefully, “Jason, GO.”

He whimpers, she releases him, and he goes. The direwolf’s howls slowly die away. But the crows continue to caw until her head begins to throb, as she slowly kneels down beside her motionless nephew, feeling for a pulse in his limp wrist.


	23. Chapter 23

Berena has horrific nightmares for the remainder of their stay at Winterfell, and even until they are well south of the Neck. They muddle together in her mind, but most prominently she dreams of the tower, sees Bran plummeting from it, screaming, although of course she never saw him fall, and never heard him scream. Sometimes he falls and falls, never hitting the ground, and sometimes she falls with him, and sometimes she discovers his body but he is long dead, a rotting corpse of a child in the snow. 

And sometimes it is not Bran at all in her dreams, but one of her own children- once she finds Jason’s corpse instead, sees his green eyes, his father’s eyes, staring lifelessly at the endless grey sky, blood wreathing his golden curls like a crown. Or once it is Myriam, screaming as she plummets, head over heels, and Berena tries to run forward to break her fall but her feet are rooted to the ground and she can only helplessly watch. 

Once she dreams she is falling with Lorelei; the dream begins with her standing in the broken tower by the window, but the room is shrouded in darkness, and when she tries to venture into it a gust of wind knocks her off her feet, and she topples backwards, her shrieking daughter in her arms, as the cold air rushes up and around them and the crows caw mockingly and her tears freeze on her face.

And the very worst is the one where she is in the broken tower giving birth, but there is too much blood and it is far too early, and there are no midwives or maesters to attend her, and she screams and screams for Jaime, for Ned, but no one comes, and the babe that slides out of her is grey and deformed, and she sees the crows in the corners, batting their wings in anticipation, eyes winking in the shadows. 

“No,” she remembers sobbing aloud in the dream, “no, stay away, don’t come any closer,” but first one bird flies at her, pecking viciously, clawing at the tiny form in her arms, and then another, and another, and when she looks down at the babe it is not the child she lost but Gerold, and she throws herself over the dead infant to protect it as the crows descend upon them, cackling with inhuman laughter.

There is also a dream she barely remembers, but it involves Jaime and Cersei looking down at her, their blurred forms wavering in and out of her vision, and when she manages to get a clearer look at them, she realizes that they are standing over her body, that she is dead, because she cannot move a muscle or force her lips to form words. 

“Come away from her,” Cersei is beseeching Jaime in this dream, “it’s awful, don’t look at what she’s done to herself.”

He slowly steps back from Berena, although she is trying to move, to even blink her eyes, but she can feel the coldness of her skin and the blood pooling around her. 

“I begged her,” he says hoarsely, “I begged her not to jump.”

And then Lyanna is there, ghostly pale but smiling queerly, and she is pulling Berena’s broken body into her lap, her warm fingers probing at her hair and face, and her sister whispers in her ear, “Better a dead wolf than a caged bird, sweetling.” She sounds far older than sixteen. Her breath mists and snow flurries around them, catching on both of their bloody gowns. 

Her dark hair drapes over both of them like a veil, reeking of sickly sweet roses. “ _No towers for me, my love, no towers for me_ ,” Lya sings so softly and sweetly, although she was always loathe to sing in life, “ _for I am no treasure, I was born to be free. No towers for me, the maiden did sing, but her own true lover heard not a thing. She wept and she wailed, as he rode away, and how she did long for a bright sunny day. No towers for me, the she-wolf would plead, but her own fair knight had left her to bleed…_ ”

Berena awoke with a muffled scream from that dream, when they were camped in the ruins of Moat Cailin, and Jaime started awake beside her, reaching for his sword until he realized there was no danger. He had asked her what she’d dreamed of, but Berena had only shaken her head and clung to him like a child until she fell back into a deeper, mercifully dreamless sleep.

She is well relieved to be rid of the nightmares by the time they reach the Ruby Ford. Berena had never expected to be eager to leave Winterfell, her home, but after Bran’s fall, she was. The castle seemed foreign to her that last week, when Ned and Cat prayed at their son’s bedside and the children hid their tearstained faces at dinner. Even Jaime seemed withdrawn, and she knows he must have been thinking how easily it could have been their own son. 

But the dreams and the memories have faded a little now, and while she wouldn’t go so far as to call the journey back to King’s Landing pleasant, it is bearable, especially given the presence of her brother and nieces. She feels for Arya, who seems to have been confined to the background now that Sansa’s betrothal to Joffrey has been officially announced, but half the time the girl is running off with Jason to go exploring or look for rubies in the river. 

Berena would rather Jason spend time getting up to mischief with Arya than trailing after Joffrey like a dog, so she doesn’t draw attention to it unless he is late for meals. She’d rather the children get out as much energy as possible on the Kingsroad; there is precious little space for young children to play in the Red Keep, and she dislikes having her son or daughters out of her sight there.

It is a fine enough summer morning and while Jason and Arya and that red-haired butcher’s boy, Mycah, have already ran off somewhere, Berena, holding Lorelei’s hand, finds Myriam saddling her pony while Cassana and Jeyne Poole look on uncertainly. Myriam may be similar enough to Sansa in that she fully appreciates the finery and excess of court life, but she is also wickedly confident, self-assured in a way few girls of ten are. 

“And where would you be off to?” Berena asks in bemusement, as Myriam mounts her little chestnut pony, Lanny, and helps Jeyne up behind her.

“We’re going to pick wildflowers in the hills and make flower crowns,” Myriam declares. “The wheelhouse is too stuffy and the queen isn’t going to be there anyways. She has to talk to Ser Barristan and Lord Renly and Ser Ilyn,” she shudders delicately. “He’s horrible, Mother.”

“The poor man had his tongue ripped out years ago, have some pity, Myriam,” Berena scolds her, although she will privately concede that Ser Ilyn would likely be just as menacing could he speak, since the man seems to project an aura of immense dread, even more so than grim, burned Sandor Clegane.

Cassana is looking at Berena as if she expects to be immediately ordered back to the stuffy wheelhouse; Berena smiles warmly at the girl instead. Cassana may be a princess, but she seems to spend most of her young life being ordered about by either her brother or her mother, and has adopted the long-suffering look of a pack animal because of it.

Instead Berena says, “Stay within sight of the column, and don’t let the horses roam far.” Cassana is holding the reins of her own mount, a sleek grey mare with a well-tended mane. Riding seems to one of the few things she is completely comfortable with; she must have inherited that, at least, from her father.

“Yes, Mother,” Myriam chirps happily, and Jeyne Poole bobs her head in acknowledgement.

Berena frowns, only realizing just then who is absent. “Where is Sansa?” It would be unusual for her to wander off on her own, although Berena is not concerned for the girl’s safety, not with that direwolf of hers with her. Lady may be the most docile of the pack, but she is still an impressive beast, and only growing larger as the weeks pass. By now she’s the size of a large dog. 

“She went off with the prince,” Jeyne gushes, the envy plain as day on her face. “He asked her to go for a ride with him- it was so romantic, Lady Berena!”

Myriam makes a sound as if she is a bit skeptical of that. “Sansa hates to ride- she only agreed because Joffrey asked her and she loves him.” She draws out ‘loves’ like a song. 

“Were they unaccompanied?” Berena frowns. It is not Sansa she worries about, but Joffrey, and what he might do away from the eyes of the court. Sansa is but eleven, a sheltered child, and Joffrey may be only a year older, but Berena has found it difficult to regard him as an innocent child for some time now. There is more wrong with that boy, she thinks, than a spoiled upbringing and a nasty temper. There’s a viciousness to him as well, like an adder waiting to strike. 

“Yes,” says Cassana, surprising her by speaking up so clearly. And then she adds, almost pointedly, looking right at Berena. “He made her leave her wolf here. And he took Lion’s Tooth.”

Whoever gave Joffrey true steel deserves a good slap round the face, Berena thinks, for she cannot think of any boy more undeserving of it than he. And the fact that Lady has been left behind is troubling. Sansa may be more ‘refined’ than her siblings, but she is just as devoted to Lady as Arya is to Nymeria. The bond seems to go beyond master and pet; the wolves seem more like companions, really.

“Is Clegane with them?”

“Why would they take him?” Jeyne asks shrilly, as if horrified by the thought of it.

Berena’s mind is made up. She lets go of Lorelei’s hand and gives her a gentle push towards Cassana. “Go with Myri and your cousins today, sweetling.”

“But Mother,” Lorelei begins to whine, but Berena is already striding away, glad she wore one of her riding gowns today; dark, mossy green to mask the mud and dust from the road. 

She rides Torrhen off away from the column, and almost enjoys herself; she is so seldom alone these days, and she has not been able to ride like this without either Jaime or a Lannister guard just behind her in what seems like years. The Riverlands are truly beautiful on a day like this, when the sun is out and shining and for the time being, there seems to be no catastrophe on the horizon. It takes her a good two hours to even pick up their trail, but then she does, and it is easy riding until she hears a scream. 

Berena doesn’t think, only urges Torrhen into a gallop then, and comes bursting out of the trees and onto the riverbank to find Arya shrieking herself hoarse at Joffrey, who has the point of his sword resting on the terrified cheek of the butcher’s boy. Jason is nowhere to be seen; he must have gone off by himself. Joffrey is saying something, gloating, but turns quickly at the sound of hoofbeats as Berena reins in Torrhen and comes to a brisk halt just a few paces from them. Her fury must be evident, for Sansa, sitting timidly on her mare, looks as though she wants to cry, and Mycah immediately runs for the treeline. 

Joffrey’s lip curls. “What-,”

“What do you think you’re doing,” Berena cuts him off savagely, sliding down from her horse without breaking eye contact, “pointing swords at peasant boys and frightening my nieces?”

“I wasn’t scared,” Arya retorts angrily, but Sansa has gone pale, except for her cheeks, which are flushed scarlet. Berena can smell the wine on both her and Joffrey from here.

“Gods be good,” she says humorlessly, “you’re both drunk.”

“I only had a bit, Aunt,” Sansa exclaims, but her shoulders hunch in mortification.

“And what if we did?” Joffrey sneers. “I’m a prince, I’m allowed to drink whenever I please.”

“Really?” mocks Berena, who is too angry to hold her tongue with the boy, even if she has always been guarded around him before, with Cersei near. But Cersei is not here now, is she? “And are you also allowed to torment whomever you like? Put your sword away, you little fool.”

Joffrey flushes crimson, and doesn’t sheath Lion’s Tooth. “You can’t speak to me like that!”

“Put it away,” snaps Berena, “before I take it from you myself.”

“What do you care about some stupid little butcher’s boy,” he rants, “he’s not even worth a copper, and he was playing at swords with her,” he jerks his head accusatorily at Arya, who in response tightens her grip on her wooden sword and spits. “Shut up!”

Joffrey whirls on her. “What did you say to me, you little bitch?” he snaps incredulously, and the words have barely left his lips before there’s an almighty crack as Arya strikes him hard across the face with her sword.

“Arya!” Sansa screams, scrambling down from her mare, and Berena moves to get in between the two, but to her horror Joffrey raises Lion’s Tooth, and with one blow reduces Arya’s sword to splinters. 

“DON’T!” Berena yells, but the boy is enraged, an angry red welt raising across his handsome face, and Arya scrambles backward, away from his sword’s swing, and plucks up a rock, throwing it at him. It misses, soars past Berena, and strikes Joffrey’s horse, which races off, neighing in fright.

Joffrey keeps after Arya, whose expressions shifts from anger to fear when she realizes he means to seriously hurt her, and as she continues to evade him Berena unsheathes the knife at her side. It’s mostly ornamental and used for hunting more than anything else, a gift from Jaime for her last name day, but it’s still a blade. If she draws blood from Joffrey Cersei will have her head on a pike, but she can’t stand idly by and let him attack a nine year old girl.

“Get away from her!” she snaps, starting after them, knife in hand, but then a grey blur cuts off her path, slamming into Joffrey with a snarl. The direwolf knocks him from his feet into the shallows of the river, biting down hard on his arm, and he drops his sword with a howl of pain.

“Get it off, get it off!”

“Arya,” Berena looks directly at the girl, who after a moment’s hesitation yells, “Nymeria!” and the wolf falls back instantly, returning to heel at her side.

Joffrey is sobbing now, holding his arm, and Berena steps over him to look at her niece. “Are you alright?” Arya nods her head quickly, and she turns back to Sansa, who is gaping in horror. “Sansa, ride back to the holdfast and tell them the prince has been injured.”

Behind her, she hears a distinct splash, and turns to find that Arya has tossed Joffrey’s precious blade into the river. He moans as if physically pained by the sight of it. Then, shoulders heaving up and down, Arya turns and runs into the woods, her wolf following her.

“Arya!” Berena calls after her, but the girl ignores her, vanishing into the undergrowth.

Joffrey is still crying, but Berena cannot find much sympathy for him. Sansa stands between him and her mare, as if debating whether or not to run to his side. “Sansa, go,” Berena says sharply, and the girl does so, tears streaming down her face.

As she rides off, Berena looks down at Joffrey. “That cunt tried to kill me,” he’s weeping piteously, “didn’t you see that? I’m telling Mother, I want her whipped, I want her dead, she can’t- I’m a prince,” then he seems to at last notice the knife in Berena’s hand, and pales all the more, words trailing off.

Berena looks at him with nothing but contempt, and then sheathes it. “If I had my way,” she says very clearly, “the only one being whipped would be you. Don’t think I won’t tell your father exactly what happened here. You’re a craven little bully who doesn’t deserve a stick to swing about, never mind a sword. And if I ever hear you refer to one of my nieces as a bitch or a cunt,” she says low and furiously, “again, I can promise you that you’ll find me far less forgiving.”

Sheer hatred flashes in his eyes- he has Cersei’s eyes, Berena knew it before but sees it truly just then, because she has seen that exact look before, many times. But there is something of Jaime in the furious twist of his mouth, and she finds that all the more unsettling.


	24. Chapter 24

Berena would join the search for Arya, but she is off looking for her own son, at least for the first day. Jaime finds Jason by a stream at dawn, after a night of fruitless searching, and Berena is nearly hysterical when she glimpses him again. The girls are overjoyed as well, clinging to them, which Jason for once tolerates, until Berena sends them off with a maid so she and Jaime can get the truth of where’s he been from him.

The story is almost laughably simple. “I wanted to look for rubies,” Jason says, wrinkling his nose, “so I went down the river more to find some, and when I came back it was getting dark and Arya and Mycah were gone and I didn’t know how to find the road again. So I walked around until I got tired and then I went to sleep under a tree, and then I saw Mycah.”

Berena stiffens and exchanges a look with Jaime. The butcher’s boy has been missing for as long as Arya, no doubt terrified that of what punishment he might face if found by the Lannisters. “Where did he go?”

“He said Joff was going to kill him,” Jason shrugs. “So I said he had better go south, because everyone would think he’d ran back north.” He looks to his parents, quizzical. “Are they really going to behead him for fighting with Arya?”

“No,” Berena says quickly, “no, of course not, he did nothing wrong. But he’s right to stay away. If the queen’s men found him-,” she hesitates, and glances at Jaime, whose eyes are dark, although mayhaps it’s just the effect of the lantern light in the tent. 

“You need to go to sleep,” he tells Jason. “And take a bath when you wake- you’re filthy.” He ruffles Jason’s hair affectionately, and Berena presses a kiss to her son’s hot forehead, before following her husband out of the tent. 

“You should have stayed away as well,” he says, without looking at her; the sun is rising over the Castle Darry, where the Baratheon-Lannister-Stark party has camped, and will remain until Arya is found. “Cersei is furious; Joffrey’s arm will have to stay in a sling for at least a fortnight.”

“I didn’t command Nymeria to attack him,” Berena snaps. “Had I not been there, it could have gone far worse- he could have killed Mycah, or Arya-,”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jaime cuts her off incredulously. “He might have meant to give the peasant boy a beating for a laugh, but you can’t really think he meant to harm the Stark girl.”

“The ‘Stark girl’ is our niece, Jaime,” Berena hisses. “And you weren’t there. You didn’t see him- he had his sword a hair’s breadth from the boy’s throat.”

“He’s arrogant little bully,” Jaime says, and she can tell he’s trying to convince both her and himself, “but he’s just a boy, Berena. Come now, you know-,”

“I know exactly what Joffrey Baratheon is,” Berena steps back from him, arms crossed defensively, “and so do you.” Her tone is not lost on Jaime, who briefly looks as though she just slapped him, before he shakes his head curtly.

“Enough. The only way to put the matter behind us all is to find Arya. I’m leading a party back upriver this afternoon, as is Clegane. While I’m gone-,” here he pauses, and then his voice softens somewhat, “try to keep out of trouble.”

“I’m your wife, not your child,” says Berena, although she knows what he means. Cersei is out for blood- primarily Stark blood- and no tale in the world could convince her that Berena and Arya are not somehow responsible for Joffrey’s injury. Berena doubts the woman is going to send an assassin creeping into her tent at night, but she keeps the girls near here at all times, just in case. Cersei will not be so bold as to act against Ned’s kin in the presence of Robert, but Robert may not always be there to deter her. 

Three days later, just past sundown, Jaime has not yet returned, but Arya has been found. Berena has just finished dining with her children when a messenger informs her, and she jumps to her feet, snatching up her cloak. “Stay here,” she tells the children seriously. 

“Can’t we go see Arya?” Myriam demands. 

“Arya is with the king and queen,” Berena tries to hide her obvious discomfort, “and they are discussing serious matters with your uncle Ned. It is no place for children.”

“But Arya’s there!” Jason protests, as she ducks out of the tent and sets off for the castle interior at a brisk pace.

She walks into the room to find crowded chaos; Arya is tearfully recounting what happened to Robert, whose expression is more irritable than concerned. Ned has his hands on Sansa’s shoulders; the girl looks terrified, and keeps shooting nervous glances at Cersei and Joffrey, who are seated at Robert’s side. Cersei has a look on her beautiful face that Berena has seen many times before; it’s the expression one might have when they realize a prize is just within their grasp.

Arya is covered in dirt and mud, her hair a matted mess, and her telling of the story as emotional and indignant as any child’s would be. She does not make for the most convincing speaker, and Berena reaches her brother’s side just as Arya trails off, and Robert stands, sighing heavily. “What in all the seven hells am I supposed to make of this? He says one thing, she says another.”

“They were not the only ones present,” Ned speaks up, ignoring Cersei’s scowl. “My sister and eldest daughter were also there.”

“Then we’ll hear it from Lady Berena,” Robert says, beckoning Berena forward. She squeezes Sansa’s shoulder quickly, and steps into the torchlight, ignoring the heat of the stares on her from all corners of the room. Had she been asked to recount what happened mere hours afterwards, she would have gladly dragged Joffrey over hot coals. 

But as much as she hates to admit it, Jaime has- had- a point. She cannot afford to make any more of an enemy of Cersei than she already has, and if she paints Joffrey as a little monster- however true that might be- it will spell disaster in the long-run. But she cannot lie, either.

“When I came upon the prince and the girls, Joffrey was mocking Mycah,” she says calmly, avoiding eye contact with Cersei, who looks as though she’s ready to pounce. 

Robert frowns. “Who?”

“The butcher’s boy,” Berena fights back her exasperation, and continues on. “He frightened the boy, and he ran off into the forest. Then he and Arya began to argue, and when she struck him with her… stick, he swung his sword at her. I tried to intervene, but the wolf attacked first. Arya called her off, and then they both ran off as well. I told Sansa to ride back to the holdfast and get help, and I bandaged his arm with his shirt-sleeve.”

Joffrey’s lip curls, but he says nothing.

Robert stares at Berena for a moment, and then nods. “I see.” He looks to his son, his expression turning thunderous. “Is this true, boy?”

“They attacked me first,” Joffrey begins quickly, but he cannot dodge the blow from his father, which reduces him to yelping like a kicked dog and clinging to his mother, who wraps her arms around him. Berena thanks the gods that her murderous stare is focused on Robert at the moment, and not her.

“This doesn’t change the fact that Joffrey was brutally maimed by this girl’s beast,” Cersei says loudly, over the murmurs spreading through the room. “I want her punished, and I want the wolf’s head.”

As Robert and her bicker, Berena steps back with Ned and the girls. “Thank you, Berena,” Ned says soberly, and she shakes her head. 

“It was nothing. But Ned, if they cannot find Nymeria-,”

“They won’t,” Arya speaks up fiercely, “they won’t, she’s gone far away, where they’ll never, ever find her-,”

It is not Nymeria that Berena is concerned about, but the wolf that remains. She knows Cersei well enough-

“We have a wolf,” Cersei calls out triumphantly, and Berena turns back, just in time to see Robert, still flushed with anger, shrug. “As you will. Have Ser Ilyn see to it.”

“What?” Sansa asks in a very small voice. “What are they talking about? Father-”

“Robert, you cannot mean this,” Ned addresses the king, and Berena takes Sansa’s hand. 

“Come away now-,”

But the girl rips her hand free and reaches for her father, as Robert barks, “Get her a dog, she’ll be happier for it.”

“Lady wasn’t there!” Arya yells, although her voice is drowned out by the crowd. “You leave her alone, she didn’t do anything!”

Sansa has broken down into hoarse tears, grasping at Ned’s hands desperately. “Please, Father, don’t let them, Lady’s good, she didn’t bite anyone, she would never, Father, please, please-,”

The queen and the prince’s smiles are nearly identical.

Berena has to step out before she is sick. She meets Ned as he stalks off in the direction of the gatehouse. “Ned, you can’t mean to-,”

“If I don’t do it, Payne will,” he says roughly, and she can see the pain in his eyes. In that moment, she could tear Cersei to shreds of golden hair and fair skin. “I have no choice, Berena.” She comes to halt and helplessly watches him continue on his way, head bowed.

Damn them both, Berena wants to say, damn them both and go home, Ned, take the girls and leave while you still can. But she cannot. And even as her mind is racing for some sort of way to save Lady, to convince Robert, to trick him and Cersei, she knows it is a lost cause. Ned has always done his duty, and he won’t shirk from it, even if it will break his daughter’s heart. 

She finds Sansa wracked with sobs in her bed; Arya is nowhere to be seen, and Berena prays she hasn’t run off again. Berena sits silently on the edge of her niece’s cot for a few moments, before at last she feels comfortable enough to pull the girl into her embrace, stroking her hair and humming under her breath the way she always has with Lorelei when she’s particularly upset. “I’m sorry, sweetling. I truly am.”

“It’s-,” Sansa can barely speak for her tears, “it’s not fair, Lady’s good, she would never hurt anyone, it was Arya’s wolf, it was Arya, it’s not-,” she breaks off into sobs once more, “I didn’t do anything wrong, I was just-,” she hiccups, “trying to make- the prince… happy…”

“Sansa,” Berena says into the girl’s ear. “Listen to me. This is not your fault, ot Arya’s. The only one to blame here is Joffrey. Had he not attacked your sister, Nymeria never would have hurt him. You know this. Have you ever been scared of her? Or any of your siblings’ wolves?”

Sansa is still and trembling for a moment, and then shakes her head. “Not even Ghost.”

“Because you are a Stark,” Berena whispers, “and Starks don’t fear wolves the way other men do. Lady would have done the same, if you were ever in danger. I know she would have. What Joffrey did was cruel, and what the queen did was even crueler. She wanted to punish your father and sister, so she used Lady as means to an end.”

“But- but she’s the queen,” Sansa gasps fitfully, straightening up a little in Berena’s grasp. “She’s the queen, she’s… she’s beautiful, and good, and-,”

“Sansa,” Berena says gently, “there will come a time when you see that the world is not made up of beautiful good people and ugly evil people. People come in all shades of grey, sweetling. It’s not always like the songs and the stories. Joffrey may be a prince, and your betrothed, but that does not mean he is always right, or good. If he had hurt Arya,” she pauses and pushes back Sansa’s thick auburn curls from her tear-stained face, “if he had hurt Arya, I know you would not have turned on her. Would you?”

Sansa stares at her for a moment, then haltingly shakes her head. “He… he shouldn’t have pointed Lion’s Tooth at her,” she admits, like a confession, and wipes at her eyes. “I wanted him to stop. That’s not… not how a prince should act.”

“It’s not,” Berena agrees, and then adds softly, “but I know you and Arya were raised better. You may not like her- I didn’t always like my sister- but you love one another. You need to be there for her, and she for you. Please, Sansa. Don’t make the mistakes I did.”

She resented Lyanna at times, it’s true. Resented her, envied her, dismissed her, argued with her- but she always loved her, and in the end it wasn’t enough. Wasn’t enough for her sister to trust her, confide in her, wait for her. But if she could somehow avert that with her nieces- well, she would never wish what happened to her and her sister on Sansa and Arya, never.

Berena holds her niece for a while longer, until Arya creeps back into the tent and curls up beside her, and then she leaves them both to their fitful sleep.


	25. Chapter 25

Berena despises King’s Landing even more now than the last time she left it. If anything, it feels even hotter, smells even fouler, and appears even more crowded and filthy than it was when they left it months ago. The only thing keeping her from immediately setting forth for the westerlands is her love for her brother, and she still questions her judgment in bringing the children back here.

But it will only be for a few months, she tells herself. Truthfully, neither she, nor Jaime, nor the queen could ever tolerate their combined presence for any longer than that. A few months, and then she will hopefully leave Ned and her nieces better off than when they arrived. A few months, and she will throw up her hands and take her leave of this game. She’s never pretended to be the most politically adept. Perhaps it’s a Stark weakness, being ill suited for political maneuvering. 

Well, that and excessively warm weather.

Yet the children are cheered to be back in the city and off the road, no longer moaning about sore legs and backs or wrinkling their nose at whatever game was turned up by the latest hunt. Even Sansa and Arya seem thrilled to have finally arrived, for all the grief they had along the road, both without their wolves and at each other’s throats. Berena stepped in where she could, but at some point, she knows, they have to be left to fight it out amongst themselves. It’s a part of growing up.

She never feels very grown up at court. She always feels like an awkward girl once more, squirming in her seat at feasts and unable to stay in the throne room for more than a few minutes. Sometimes she sees glimpses of her father’s corpse hanging from the rafters, out of the corner of her eye. And it always worsens her nightmares- she’s prepared for several weeks of restless sleep, at best.

But all that can be endured, and has been endured before, it’s only- there’s something about Jaime that’s left her unsettled for weeks now. They haven’t had any vicious fights or long-standing arguments as of late, and by all rights she should feel perfectly content, but- she cannot shake the feeling as though there is something lodged between them. Not knowing what is maddening, but he is- distant, somehow, although he has not shied away from her bed.

There’s little privacy on the road, so she waits until their third night back in the city, when they’re no longer exhausted and irritable with each other and the children, and dismisses her maid earlier than usual in order to speak with him alone. “Have I angered you in some way?” she frames it as a jest, but can’t keep herself from glancing at him, as she works out a knot in her hair.

He frowns, lounging on her bed like she thinks, and not for the first or last time, an oversized cat. “Why, what have I done now?”

“Nothing,” she says mildly. “Only- you’ve been so quiet with me since Winterfell, it seems. It’s unlike you to not enjoy the sound of your own voice.” Berena smiles reflexively as she says it, expecting him to laugh, but instead a look crosses his face that she had hoped not to see. He is hiding something, or he’s lied to her recently, or planning on lying to her. They’ve been married for over a decade. She knows him well enough by now to see it.

“We should have gone back to the Rock,” he says instead. “We’ve spent more than enough time away.” His tone shifts slightly to something more persuasive. “I know you miss Ger.”

Berena almost flinches, affronted. She does miss Gerold, more than anything. He’s her eldest. “Of course I do. But he doesn’t- he’s twelve, he doesn’t need his mother fretting over him. And Ned-,” she hesitates. “My brother needs me too, even if he’s not willing to admit it. This is- this isn’t an easy place for him to be, after our…” She trails off; Jaime knows well enough what she’s referring to. He witnessed it. 

“There are plenty of other men willing to take his place,” Jaime points out, sitting up as she approaches the bed. “If he truly doesn’t wish to be here, even Robert could not-,”

“It’s not a question of wishing, it’s a question of duty,” Berena says shortly, resisting the urge to add something snide about Jaime’s duties. Ned never knew he’d be lord of Winterfell and warden of the North, growing up, but Jaime has been groomed to take his father’s place all his life, and yet it’s still… There’s no sense in having this argument with him. 

Instead she lets him wrap his arms lazily around her, and leans back into his chest. His breath is hot on her scalp, and she traces the scars on his hands from years of sparring. “I’ve just missed you, is all,” she murmurs. “I feel like we’ve barely had a chance to talk about anything at all besides the children.”

“Then you’re going to be disappointed,” he turns so he can kiss her properly, “I’m not much interested in talking tonight.”

Berena smiles in spite of herself against the warmth of his mouth.

She’d hoped to not see much of Cersei after their arrival at court, busying herself with resuming the children’s lessons with a septa and seeing to it that her nieces don’t get themselves into any more trouble, but she should have known it couldn’t long. Cersei finally makes her move barely a week after they finish unpacking. 

Berena is in the gardens with Myriam, Lorelei, and Cassana- her youngest has wandered over to a nearby fountain where one of the castle’s many cats is lounging. The older girls are supposed to be practicing the high harp, but that’s long since been given up on. Berena should be scolding them for their lack of focus, but Myriam is able to coax Cassana into conversation in a way few others can.

“My father says I can go hunting with him once I’m fast enough on Elenei,” Cassana says with a small smile; she has not inherited her mother’s golden beauty, but she is not an ugly little girl, either- Berena thinks she will grow into a pretty enough maiden, given a few years. The sunlight glints nicely off her black curls, and her eyes are a deep, solemn shade of blue. “He says I’m a better rider than Joffrey, even,” she lowers her voice as if expecting her older brother to suddenly appear, infuriated.

Myriam laughs loudly. “Even I’m a better rider than Joff- he’s scared of his own mount, that’s why he whips it so much!”

Cassana’s small smile nearly widens to a grin. “Once he tried to ride Elenei, and she almost kicked him.”

“Lower your voice, Myriam,” Berena reminds her, and rolls her eyes at her daughter’s little huff of displeasure. “You never know who could be listening.”

Myriam runs her fingers along the harp they had brought out with them, plucking a light string of notes, and Cersei rounds the corner. Myriam’s playing tapers off, and she averts her gaze; Berena is glad her usually bold daughter knows better than to lock eyes with the queen. Myriam may have brown curls instead of blonde, but her eyes are unmistakably her father’s green.

“I’ve been looking all over for you, Cassana,” Cersei says with the slightest hint of a frown at her rosebud lips. She is dressed to project power; her sleeveless gown’s flared neck is spun with golden Myrish lace, and her bodice ripples with amber beads. Her long skirts rustle as she walks, her white hands clasped in front of her. 

Berena will give her this; few women could ever embody ‘queen’ in presentation the way Cersei Lannister does, and has for over a decade now. She may be past thirty, but she still looks as young and fair as she did on her wedding day. Berena feels almost dowdy in comparison, the sweltering sun bleaching out the sky blue of her own gown. She rises and curtsies automatically, and Myriam belatedly follows suit. “Your Grace.”

“I’m sorry, Mother.” Cassana sounds almost sullen, but dares not show it, instead biting down hard on her lower lip. “I was practicing the harp with cousin Myriam.”

“You have no need for the high harp,” Cersei says dismissively. “You are a princess of House Baratheon. You need not a minstrel’s toy to win the hearts of men.”

Berena is quite certain Cersei has never played an instrument a day in her life. She can’t even imagine the woman humming a lullaby, nevermind singing in happiness or amusement. Lorelei comes over, haltingly, and when Cersei turns to regard her scurries to Berena’s side, clutching her hand. 

“She is a shy little mouse, isn’t she?” Cersei’s mouth curls up slightly, like a dried leaf, and Berena smiles defensively, a hand on her daughter’s head of pale blonde hair.

“I’d like to speak with you, Lady Berena,” the queen continues, and casts a disinterested glance over the children. “Don’t worry, I won’t keep you from your… music lesson long.”

“Of course, Your Grace,” says Berena, trying very much not to look like a cornered doe, shying away from a snarling hound. She lets go of Lorelei and matches her steps with Cersei’s, although she is careful to always remain ever so slightly behind as they walk through the carefully sculpted hedges and flowerbeds. She would much rather be in Winterfell’s godswood at the moment, or even out on the plains beneath Casterly Rock.

“I hope you find the Red Keep hospitable,” Cersei begins. It is decidedly not a question.

“Very much so, Your Grace.” Berena is well aware of how thin the ice she is currently treading on is. 

She is very lucky that Cersei has considered her a despised inconvenience and not a direct threat for so long. It is only because Berena has always done her best to let Cersei believe she has the upper hand, that she is winning this twisted little game they play over Jaime and House Lannister as a whole. The second she directly confronts or defies the queen, Berena thinks, is the second the gates of hell open.

“I hope you don’t intend to stay long,” Cersei goes on, and then laughs, sweetly, and without any trace of amusement. “You’ve been away from the westerlands for so long now. Is that not your home? I hope the visit north did not stir up too many… painful memories.”

“I was only glad to see my brother and his wife once more,” Berena lies through her teeth.

“Yes, your dear Ned…,” Cersei pauses, and stops to stare directly at her. Berena meets her gaze through her eyelashes, almost squinting in the sun. The queen seems unbothered by it; perhaps she feels entirely comfortable in its heat. “His Grace loves him like a brother, as I’m sure you know. It’s rather touching. I have faith he will do Robert and the Seven Kingdoms proud as Hand.”

“Ned will always do what is best for the Iron Throne, Your Grace,” Berena says quietly.

Cersei smiles, baring neat, nearly white teeth. “You could learn a lesson from him, dear Berena. One day my son will sit his father’s throne, and you and your brother and all the realm will kneel to him and declare him your rightful king. And your loyalty will belong to him alone.” To me, she is saying. Your loyalty will belong to me, and gods help you if you provoke my ire.

“Yes, Your Grace.” Berena can feel the sun’s rays bearing down on the back of her neck, where sweat is beading. “Joffrey will grow into as strong a king as his father, I hope.” The lies this woman pries out of her- Robert has not acted as a true king in years, and Joffrey likely never will.

“Joffrey,” Cersei says pointedly, “will be even stronger. I have seen to that. See to it that you and your children never give me reason to doubt your faith in him. After all,” she reaches out and her delicate nails dig into Berena’s freckled arm, “we are family of a sort, as Robert is always saying. Family should never be divided, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Family is the only thing that matters in the end,” Berena assures her, dropping her gaze to the ground as Cersei smiles tightly and lets go. “At last, something we can agree on.”


	26. Chapter 26

Berena joins her brother and nieces in the godswood when she hears of Bran’s awakening. It’s nothing short of a miracle, and she kneels beneath the heart tree in thanks. The old gods often seem cruel and distant, compared to the Seven, but they have seen fit to preserve a child’s life, and for that Berena is grateful. 

“Continue to protect House Stark,” she murmurs in prayer alongside Sansa and Arya, but silently adds, ‘and my own children, Lannisters though they be’ in her head. Her sons and daughters were christened in a sept, but she brought each of them to the godswood at the Rock in the weeks after their births, and did her own anointing of them there.

She dozes off into the cool evening at some point, and when she awakens there are leaves in her hair and the stars glimmer overhead. She feels a jolt of guilt at having not been present to say goodnight to her own children, and slowly gets up, hurrying back into the keep. Jaime finds her pressing a silent kiss to Lorelei’s slumbering brow.

“Where were you?” he asks, as she hastily undresses, and then smiles bemusedly, plucking a crimson leaf from her hair. “You disappeared after dinner. Lore was asking after you. My stories aren’t as good as yours- she wanted something Northron tonight.”

“Did you not hear?” Berena whispers breathlessly. “Bran’s awoken- he cannot move below the waist, but Robb writes that he’s speaking and eating well.” She smiles. “It’s a miracle- Ned is so relieved, and the girls as well- Sansa was so happy she cried, and Arya too.” 

She embraces Jaime, who holds her close but is silent for a moment, before he acknowledges, “A miracle.” Berena pulls back, blinking drowsily. “What’s wrong?” He looks pale, but perhaps it is just the darkness. 

“Nothing at all,” says Jaime. “Come to bed. I’m only shocked the boy lived. He seemed near death when we left.”

“Bran is strong,” Berena murmurs. “All Brandons are.” Jaime does not argue with that, but it seems to take him far longer than usual to fall asleep that night, shifting restlessly this way and that. Yet Berena’s sleep is unencumbered for once; she doesn’t have a single nightmare.

Her mood is vastly improved in the week that follows, even after her menacing discussion with Cersei and Jaime’s continued aloofness. Myriam seems to be successfully drawing Cassana out of her shell, and when Sansa joins them it is less time spent with Joffrey, which is always a good thing. Ned has arranged for Arya to have ‘dancing lessons’ under Braavosi named Syrio Forel. 

Berena is initially shocked that her brother has agreed to let his daughter learn how to wield a sword, but she quickly realizes that Ned considers it a childish indulgence, a kindness to the girl, nothing more. But she inquires as to whether Jason might not learn alongside her- it certainly helps to keep him out of trouble.

She is almost happy, for a short while, until Ned comes to join her for a rare solitary midday meal one sweltering afternoon, and asks after Jon Arryn. “I had thought you might have got to know him better in recent years,” he says cautiously, as she pours him some wine. “Being at court more frequently.”

“He was always polite,” Berena shrugs, “and he seemed to like the children- I used to encourage Jason to befriend little Robert, but the boy was always with Lysa. She still nursed him, and he was five years old, last I saw him.” She wrinkles her nose in disgust. 

“But did he seem troubled by anything?” Ned presses, and Berena considers her brother from across the table, as birds chirp sweetly on the trellis outside.

“Ned…”

“Don’t ask me questions I can’t in good conscience answer,” her brother warns.

“Then I won’t,” Berena bites into a crisp tart, and swallows. “You think his death was not illness?”

“I don’t think anything.” Ned is cautious. Good. Berena is reasonably sure no one is listening in, but one can never be too careful.

“He spent a good deal of time with Lord Stannis,” she acknowledges. “And he did not seem to like his wife, nor she him. They argued constantly- put Jaime and I to shame.”

Ned inclines his head slightly, sipping his wine, and they both trail into silence. Berena’s mind is racing. She was not present for Arryn’s rapid decline, but he did die suddenly, and unexpectedly. Does Ned suspect Cersei had a hand in it? But she was not in the city when Arryn sickened. Yes, she could have had some servant carry it out for her, but that seems risky, even for a creature of impulse like the queen.

And why would Cersei want Arryn dead six months ago, anyways? He has served Robert for years now. She could have ostensibly had him murdered years ago, if she believed him to be a threat to her. And if Cersei went about killing everyone she didn’t like, few members of the court would remain. She would only move against the warden of the East if she truly believed him to be a danger to her- or her children.

“His last words were curious, if Pycelle is to be believed,” Ned murmurs after several minutes. 

Berena looks up at him warily.

“The seed is strong,” Ned says quietly. “What in the world could that mean?” It is a rhetorical question, but Berena finds herself struggling to answer it all the same. She does not struggle long. The seed if strong, and Arryn poisoned, on the eve of Joffrey’s twelfth name day. The seed is strong- not Arryn’s, with his frail, sickly little son. But Robert… Robert and all his bastards…

She comes to her conclusion very quickly, but Ned is already rising to take his leave. He has meetings to attend. The Hand of the King rarely wants for work to do. Berena kisses him on the cheek before he goes, and sinks back into her seat, shaky. If Arryn suspected… it would explain why Stannis is no longer at court. It would explain… much.

But she can hardly tell Ned what Jon Arryn may have come to believe about Joffrey, ever his mother’s son. She could- but what would it mean for her? For Jaime? Their children? The simple truth is rarely so simple after the fact. If she were to reveal that she knows what Joffrey is- that she has always known- what would Ned think of her? More importantly, what might he do? Honor and duty dictates that he inform Robert immediately. Robert would not hesitate, Berena knows, for the chance to be rid of Cersei. It would spell death for Jaime and Joffrey as well. 

And her and her own children… Ned would never wish them ill, she knows that instinctively, but the king- if he were to think, or even suspect, that she was aware of Cersei cuckolding him with her husband- This is about more than the truth and lies. This is a matter of life and death, and not just Jaime’s. How can it come out? There is no scenario that does not end terribly for her, for the children.

But to willingly deceive Ned, to try to convince him that all of this is foolish paranoia- she does not think she is capable of that, either. So what option remains to her, but to wait and see? Any trace of contentment has vanished in the blink of an eye. Ned still does not suspect Joffrey to be a bastard, but that could change at any moment. He may very well stumble over the truth before the month is out. And when he does…

She never should have come here. She should have left well enough alone. This is no place for her, or the children. Or any children, really. She thinks of Bran, now confined to a bed, possibly for the rest of his life, and-

And she thinks of her own children, and Jason, and the way he came to her that day. He had been with Jaime, and then Bran had wanted to play hide-and-seek, and then-

And then-

Berena is sitting in an airy room, sunlight pouring in over her, warming her skin, but for an instant she is lying in bed under the furs and quilts with Jaime, their bare bodies pressed against each other, and she is whispering, “I thought you were going on the hunt,” but he didn’t go, did he? He didn’t go. He stayed. And she was happy. 

Why did he stay, truly? 

“I found better hunting here,” he says once more in her ear, as if right beside her, but no one is there. Berena is alone. The realization washes over her like a wave of sickness, the way another realization did so many years ago, and she crumples.

No. It cannot be. Jaime was- But she does not know where Jaime was that day, only that he was within the walls of Winterfell. She did not see him again until later that night, when she was weeping over Bran, and he held her, and he-

She barely makes it to the nearest privy before she vomits up her lunch, wine churning in her gut. Suddenly everything smells like fruit gone to rot, left too long out in the sun. If Bran saw- if Bran saw them- what- she vomits again, pushing her hair out of her face, gagging and retching. If he had been climbing, reckless, around the broken tower, and he saw, or he heard, and then- 

She has to know. She has to ask him. Hasn’t she learned her lesson from the last time? She has, but that was- that was different, the only ‘innocent’ involved was her, the only- She has to know, she cannot push it aside. She doesn’t want to believe it, refuses to believe it. Jaime has done many things, but he would not do that. He wouldn’t.

She finds him alone, in the training yard. He smiles to see her, but she can barely manage one in kind, and soon they are standing in the empty armory. “What’s wrong?” he says, running his hot hands up and down her bare arms, where goosebumps prickle. “Are you ill? Are the children-,” he pauses, and then she sees the barest hint of a smile. “Are you with child?”

Berena had almost talked herself out of confronting him, had told herself there was no sense in it, that she was being ridiculous, to just try to forget it, all of it, but with that one question she unravels. She steps away from him, almost shudders. “No.”

“Then what-,”

“Tell me the truth,” she says quickly, softly, “because I can’t bear if you- just tell me truly, Jaime. When Bran fell, were you-,” 

“No,” he says, and she sees it ripple across his face again: dread. Pure fear and dread. Not of her, maybe, but… Oh, he knows, he does, he has always known, all this time, and she thought- she is a fool. An idiotic little fool. She truly did not suspect him, would not have, could not have. She put her faith- if not in him, in herself. She thought she’d… changed him. Or that their children had. But now-

“He saw you,” she whimpers aloud, “oh, gods, he did, didn’t he? He saw the two of you while he was climbing, and-,” she shakes her head. “Jaime. Please. Tell me you-”

“Berena,” he breathes, “he didn’t- don’t be like this, this is madness, you know I haven’t-,”

“But you have,” she whispers, “haven’t you? Been with her again?” She backs away from him.

“I didn’t,” he says, “he didn’t see, I swear he didn’t, we weren’t-,”

“Stop,” she hisses. “Enough. If you- if you have ever loved me, Jaime, please- just tell me, just tell me you are not what I think you are.”

“We were only talking,” Jaime says desperately. This is not like when she overheard him and Cersei. He is not a force of intimidation or rage. He is reacting like a frightened child. She is not sure which is better. To see him barely a breath away from his hands around her throat, or to see him unmanned like this. She almost dry heaves again.

“Only talking?” she echoes him in disbelief. “Talking of what?” Her throat tightens. “Of the prince?”

“Berena-,”

She wants to run, but her feet are leaden. “No,” she says again, “no, you will tell me-,”

“Yes,” Jaime runs a shaking hand through his hair. “Yes, he saw us. Cersei shrieked when she noticed him in the window, and he slipped-,”

“Did he?” Berena licks her lips as if to spit. “Or did you push him?” Her nightmares come rushing back to him, the plummeting sensation. “Did you, to save her? Because you knew he would tell.”

“I never laid a hand on him,” Jaime hisses, and takes her by the shoulders, his gauntleted fingers digging in. “You have to believe me, you know me, Berena, I would-,”

“I don’t know you at all,” she whispers as if in awe. “I only thought I did. I was- I was so very, very blind and foolish. I thought I could- save you, somehow, from her. As if it were her corrupting you. But it isn’t, Jaime, is it? It is all you. It always has been. This is the man you are.”

“I didn’t push him, he slipped,” Jaime grinds out. “He slipped, and I couldn’t have reached him in time-,”

“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?” she demands. He hesitates.

“It would have been all our deaths,” he says hoarsely. “You know that. Your own nephew- it would have ended with the ruin of an entire house-,”

“You care nothing for House Lannister,” Berena grabs at his jerkin, “and you care everything for her. So much that you were willing to let a boy- your own nephew-,”

“He was no blood of mine-,”

“He still lives, Jaime,” Berena snarls. “To your horror. He may not remember-,”

“Enough,” Jaime raises his voice suddenly, after this entire onslaught of whispered accusations. “Berena, enough. You… after the tourney, we are leaving the city. You should tell the children.” 

She can see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. She is not speaking to the man she made love with just two nights past, but the arrogant, guarded boy she married. She had thought that boy had died, but he has always been there. He will never leave.

“How can you even speak to me,” she says in a low, revolted voice. “How can you even LOOK AT ME-,” she moves to hit him, but he catches her arm, and physically forces her back a pace. 

“Go,” he says, coldly. “There is nothing left to say.”

“What did Cersei do?” she asks. “After he fell? Did she thank you? Did she kiss you?”

“Shut up,” he says, and Berena smiles spitefully, madly, and then Jaime admits, “She cried. You have always thought her a monster, but she cried and railed at me. She tried to hit me. You are more alike than you think.”

Berena turns and runs, not knowing what else to do. He does not run after he, does not threaten her, does not even shout or bellow her name. He knows, and she knows, that they are far past the point of no return. She will not run to dear Ned, and she will not run to the king, she will only run away from him, or as far as one can run, hemmed in by these red walls.


	27. Chapter 27

Berena feigns illness for the duration of the tourney, which is not difficult, given her state. One look at her ashen face, red-rimmed eyes, and shaking hands, and her maids are convinced she has caught a summer fever. Normally she would resent being bed bound; she always hated her confinements during her pregnancies for this reason, and being bed bound in the Red Keep is even worse, but it is better than the alternative. The alternative being sitting high in the stands with her family to watch her husband joust, smiling and clapping and pretending everything is fine. She is not that skilled of a liar; she doesn’t have Jaime’s years of practice.

The children are disappointed, of course, but the excitement of the tourney and the feasting quickly overcomes any pouting. Berena has barely spoken a word to Jaime since she got the truth (or as close to the truth as she might ever get) from him, but they are both prepared to put on a good face for the children’s sake. Jaime has promised to crown Myriam queen of love and beauty if he wins, unflowered though she may be. And even shy Lorelei is willing to brave the crowds without her mother.

Berena is glad, because her children are close enough with her that they would know something was terribly wrong if they insisted on staying here with her. She tosses and turns fitfully under her cloying sheets, and finally gives up on feigning illness when the sun sinks low in the sky. Even the servants are gone, so there is no one to find her out like a naughty child. She paces barefoot across the stone floor, mind racing. All she can think is that in a sense, Jaime is right, as much as she loathes to admit it. They need to leave. As soon as possible.

The court is bordering on a crisis- if Ned finds out- when Ned finds out- he will go to Robert, and when he does, woe to House Lannister. There is still the chance that Ned may not find any damning evidence of Cersei’s infidelity, but even if he cannot prove it, if he so much as suggests the possibility to the king- well, plenty of husbands have found reason enough before, even if they have to conjure proof out of thin air. 

Berena is not thinking out of concern for Cersei or Joffrey or even Jaime. She has her own children to worry about. Right now, the city is no longer safe for them. There are threats from both the king and the queen to worry about. But they are still Tywin Lannister’s grandchildren, and the future of Casterly Rock. If they are within the long shadow of the Rock, no one could so much as touch a hair on their heads. And she knows Jaime is thinking similarly. She may question his love for her- even his basic loyalty to her as a lord- but what he feels for the children is surely unbreakable. It’s instinct to want to protect one’s young.

The hot day fades into warm night, and Berena stops pacing in order to pick at the thin, watery broth brought in for her. She is swallowing another churning sip when her door creaks open. She tenses, expecting Jaime, but to her surprise it is only Jason, shadowed by the dusky light as he scrambles tentatively up onto the bed. “You’ll catch ill,” she chides him, “and shouldn’t you be at the feast? Don’t make your father go looking for you.”

Jason pulls a face. “He went riding after he lost to the Hound. Myri cried,” he snickers, rolling over to face his mother. Jason has never been the most affectionate of her children, and Berena cannot remember the last time he curled up beside her like this. She wraps an arm around him, and swallows down the lump in her throat. Things are so simple for children. So easy. If she could keep him like this forever, she would.

“Is something wrong?” she asks him, noting his quietness. Like father, like son. And Jason has always been the most ‘Lannister’ of her children; golden of hair and green of eye, his father’s miniature except for her nose and mouth. 

“Are you and Father angry with each other?” he mumbles, and she looks down at him sharply.

“Why would you say such a thing?”

“You don’t smile at each other anymore. Not since we came back from the North.”

Lorelei has always been the one most sensitive to others’ moods; Berena would have never expected hotheaded Jason. She hesitates, and then squeezes his shoulder. “We- we just have many things to worry about, sweetling. Like you and your sisters.”

“And Gerold?” Jason asks, voice muffled against her pillow.

“And Gerold,” she acknowledges. “All parents worry about their children, and- and what will happen to them. And your father and I love you all so much, we worry all the more.”

“Why’re you worried?”

“Because…,” Berena bites her lip. “Because you are growing up so fast, and it’s hard- it’s hard to know, sometimes, what is best for you. I thought… I thought coming back to court would be good for all of us, but I think- now I think we should go home.”

“I don’t want to go home,” Jason looks up suddenly, “I have lessons with Syrio and I want a sword like Arya and-,” he breathlessly goes on, “and I want to be a page for Father or the king-,”

“You can have as many sword lessons as you like at home,” Berena says, “and when we are back at the Rock you will be eight, and… and you won’t be a little boy anymore, you’ll be old enough to foster somewhere.”

“Gerold didn’t go to Ashemark until he was nine,” Jason scowls fiercely, but seems momentarily appeased.

“You are different than Gerold,” Berena presses a kiss to his curls. “You are my little wildling.”

He falls asleep beside her, and some hours later she half-awakens to find Jaime standing over them. She imagines he was looking for Jason. He doesn’t say anything, only reaches down to pick Jason up, but she minutely shakes her head, and he leaves. Berena almost calls after him, but falls back asleep, and dreams of a storm lashing King’s Landing and the Red Keep, shaking the red walls down to their foundation, and pelting the halls with wind and ice.

The storm breaks two days later, when in the midst of her packing, a serving boy bursts in to tell her that Ser Jaime and Lord Stark are fighting in the street. All Berena can think, as she drops the box of jewelry in her hands onto the bed, is that Ned has found out, that he confronted Jaime in person, and that no matter who wins, she will have lost either a brother or a husband.

“Get my horse,” she tells the boy, kicking off her slippers and jamming her feet into her riding boots. “Now,” she barks, when he hesitates fearfully. “I am Lady Lannister, am I not?”

The boy was wrong; the two lords are not fighting like drunken knights in the street. Twenty Lannister men have been set upon her brother and his guards. Berena is not fool enough to go charging into the fray, not that she could have even reached them if she liked. As rain pelts down she reins in Torrhen at the top of the hill, and meets Jaime charging up it; he nearly blows past her, until he takes notice with a shout, and circles back.

“Get back inside,” he snarls; she can see the rage plain on his face. “Gods damn it, Berena, now-,”

“If my brother is dead, I’ll kill you,” Berena’s sodden cloak is slipping off her shoulders, and her hair is turning dark from the rain, plastered to her face and neck, but she feels as though she were burning from the inside out. Her voice shakes with fury.

“I ordered them not to touch him-,”

“If my brother is dead, I will kill you,” she repeats, reaching a near growl, and tries to squint through the rain at the scrabble, the shouts and clash of steel. “What have you done?”

“He ordered his Tully bitch of a wife to take Tyrion hostage,” Jaime leans over to grab her reins. “Get back inside, and ready the children. I will see you all out of the city.”

“Catelyn has Tyrion?” Berena stares at him, not comprehending. But she doesn’t have time to ask why, or how. Ned might be dead. Were she a man, had she a sword in hand, she would charge past Jaime and go flying into the mass of men and horses below, but she is not and has not. She shakes her head. “This will be war.”

“It already is war,” Jaime spits. “Do you think my father will take kindly to this? He will burn every village in the Riverlands.”

“And you will hold the torch for him,” Berena cannot summon up anything but cold blankness. If she focuses on her anger, she will lunge off her mount and claw his eyes out of his skull. A horse screams and falls, and Jaime’s men pull back. Berena watches, trying to find her brother’s figure in the mud and bodies. Jaime swears under his breath, lets go of her reins, and pulls her with one strong arm onto his horse instead, immediately turning for the keep.

Berena does not fight him; she has no intention of scrabbling with her husband, who is twice her size, and screaming hysterically in the street. If Ned is injured, the gold cloaks will bring him back. If he is dead- if he is dead, she will rend Jaime from collar to cock with his own sword. 

“Jory Cassel was with him,” she says instead, ignoring the rain lashing at both of them, the way Jaime’s arm tightens around her, as if worried she might throw herself off the stallion, headfirst into the cobblestones. “I danced with him at Winterfell. He’s dead so you could feel like a man, is that it?”

“If Tyrion is dead,” Jaime tells her, or himself, “I’ll kill him.”

“If Tyrion is dead, you know exactly who is to blame,” she hisses, and after that it is chaos; they pass through the gates as Lord Baelish leads a stream of gold-cloaks out, and Berena dismounts faster even than Jaime, weighed down by his armor, and bides her time until they are walking quickly towards their rooms before she wheels round, seeing spots with rage, and gets in a vicious blow to his mouth.

He reels back in shock, blood bubbling up on the corner of his lips, and Berena strides furiously ahead into their rooms, sends two maids to gather the children and call for horses- they will have the rest of their things sent after, they cannot waste any more time packing after what has just happened. 

She changes from her airy, now mud splattered dress into a more sensible riding gown, braids back her wet hair, and makes for the Tower of the Hand. Thankfully, neither Sansa nor Arya are there- Berena does not know how to explain anything to them- and she is there to see Ned, who is unconscious and covered in blood and dirt, when they bring him in on a litter.

“He has a broken leg, but he will live,” Pycelle assures her, regarding her attire suspiciously. “My lady, where is Ser Jaime? The king will-,”

Berena brushes past him to Ned’s side as he is deposited onto a bed, and pushes back his lank hair from his face. This is not how she envisioned leaving him, but she has no time. She has never had enough time, it seems. If she stays now, they may never let her and the children leave. “I love you,” she whispers in her brother’s ear. “Ned, go home. Please.” 

At least now there is a good enough reason- Robert cannot expect her brother to continue as Hand with a shattered leg. He will have to return to the North once he can bear to stand on it. An injury like this could leave a man, even a hale one like Ned, out of commission for months. She will have to content herself with that- she leaves so that his clothes might be cut off and his leg attended to, brushing off Pycelle’s queries. 

The children are angry at missing dinner and frightened by their father’s black mood and the half-wild look in their mother’s eyes, but they know better than to question or complain at a time like this. Berena seats Lorelei in front of her in the saddle, and Myriam and Jason share a gelding, and the presence of thirty Lannister men around them sees them out of the city gates with little resistance.

“I will take ten and ride ahead for Deep Den,” he speaks to her as if she were one of his soldiers. “With any luck there will already be a host gathered there. Keep to the gold road, and ride straight for Lannisport. Don’t stop anywhere until you’ve crossed the Blackwater Rush.”

“Yes, my lord,” Berena bites out, and she feels Lorelei stiffen in front of her. 

“Father, what’s going on?” Myriam asks waveringly. “Why are we out here at night?”

Jaime glances at her, then back at Berena. “Your mother will tell you later.” He straightens in the saddle and in the dark and the drizzling rain and the faint torchlight he could almost be a hero from the old legends, armor gleaming, bearing proud. Berena looks at him and feels a mixture of dread and fear. 

“Go,” she says bitterly. “Before we have gold cloaks upon us.”

He wheels his stallion round and gallops off into the dark with his men; tender goodbyes and promises to return soon are for the songs. Life is not a song. Berena has known this for some time now, but has not felt so starkly in years. She thinks of Ned and his broken leg and Tyrion, possibly dead on Ned’s orders, and Bran, lying in a bed somewhere, and she almost breaks down, but she is a Stark or a Lannister or something in between, and she can’t afford the price of tears right now. Instead she digs her heels in and rides on.


	28. Chapter 28

Berena reaches Casterly Rock with the children a little over a month later. The sun is sinking lower over the shore to the west and the mountains to the east, they’re all exhausted, and she is impatient for news of the court or of the Lannister forces in the Riverlands. But that will have to wait, because Kevan has sent down a party of men with a wheelhouse to escort them up to the Rock. Normally Berena would refuse it, but after weeks of hard riding with few stops and sullen children, she is more than a little tired of travel. She almost dozes off in the wheelhouse, lulled by the movement of the horses, but Myriam and Jason’s bickering is more than enough to keep her conscious.

She didn’t know what to tell the children, or how to tell them, so all they know is that their uncle Tyrion is in trouble and that their father and grandsire have gone to bring him back. Myriam is old enough to suspect more, but Berena has thus far staved off her incessant questions. Jason is more upset about Jaime’s absence, convinced that eight is old enough to ride off to war with knights. And Lorelei has had a nagging cough for the past week, which concerns Berena. Some rest will do her good, do all of them good. She’s been far from a patient mother as of late.

The entire household is not assembled to greet them, but Kevan and Dorna are waiting for them in the courtyard, as are Genna, Darlessa, and to her surprise, Alysanne. Berena greets them as politely as she can, given the circumstances, and almost winces at the pained look on Alysanne’s face. At least Berena knows where her husband is, even if she’s infuriated with him. Myrcella and Tommen haven’t seen their father for months now. 

As soon as she is able, she sends the children off to bathe and change their worn clothes for dinner, and follows Kevan and Genna into a solar, shutting the door firmly behind them. “Is there any word from Lord Tywin? Or Jaime?” Berena struggles to keep her tone neutral. They don’t know her feelings, and for everyone’s sake she’d rather it stay that way. 

“Tywin’s forces will remain in the Riverlands until House Tully hands over Tyrion,” Kevan sighs, massaging his creased forehead. “I cautioned him to wait, but-,”

“Nonsense,” says Genna sharply; she has not lost her whiplike tongue nor her quick wit, which Berena isn’t sure whether to be relieved or wary of. “What was he to do, send a raven and ask for his son back like a misplaced cloak? Hoster Tully is an old man on his deathbed, his heir is an overgrown boy, and his daughter was a fool to think taking Tyrion would end any other way.” She regards Berena with narrowed green eyes. “I’m sure you’re well aware that these rumors surrounding Tyrion- and House Lannister in general- are just that. If someone tried to kill that Stark boy, we had nothing to do with it.”

“Of course Tyrion is innocent,” Berena says, and despite her loyalty to Ned and Cat she does believe it- she cannot picture Tyrion hiring an assassin to kill Bran, even if he is aware of Jaime and Cersei’s… history. But how could he not be? She’s certain Genna knows, or at least suspects. Kevan… well, Kevan has always been rather guileless, at least by Lannister standards.

“And that brother of yours…” Genna tsks as if describing a misbehaving child. “He’s made a fine mess of things, hasn’t he? What with Robert dead-,”

“Robert’s dead?” Berena gapes at her and Kevan. “How?” She is shocked, but not stunned. Robert has been drinking and wenching himself into an early grave for years now. Last she saw him he looked much older than his thirty odd years.

“A drunken hunt ended badly for him,” Kevan sits down at the desk, expression grim. “He was gored by a boar. We only received word this morning.” He pauses, as if considering, and then admits, “Lord Stark has been arrested on charges of treason.”

Berena doesn’t need to ask why, but she mouths it anyways, feeling a deep shudder go through her. She can’t say she is surprised- with Robert dead, Ned would of course try to prevent Joffrey from being crowned, but- Gods be good, could he not have gone about it in a more… subversive manner? But she is expecting the wiles of a lion from a wolf. It would not be like Ned to try to bide his time and wait things out. He would react automatically- foolish though it might be.

“He made a number of accusations about our… new king.” Genna doesn’t sound thrilled at the prospect of Joffrey on the throne. “And Cersei’s fidelity to Robert. Whom she loved with all her heart, as we all know.” 

Kevan looks as if he is suppressing a cough, and Berena can’t help but give Genna a flat look. The older woman is unflappable. “I am sorely grieved to hear this news of my brother,” Berena says after a moment of silence passes between them. “I would not have… He is mistaken, of course, but he was injured before we left. An… accident with his horse, his leg is broken, and they say the milk of poppy…” she hesitates, “can make men say the strangest things.”

“Cersei has named herself Joffrey’s regent until his sixteenth name day,” Kevan says seriously; the look in his tired eyes suggest that he is not looking forward to this regency anymore than the rest of them. “She is determined that the court go on as normal while we all grieve the loss of Robert. As for the Stark girls,” he glances at Berena again, and she stiffens. She had hoped Ned had sent them away, but-

“Sansa Stark has been taken as House Baratheon’s ward for the time being, given that her betrothal to Joffrey still stands,” Kevan continues. “I would not worry for the girl, Berena. I’m sure she is being well treated- she is the future queen. As for the other one-,”

“Arya,” Berena says immediately, feeling a surge of nausea. “Where is she?”

“She’s vanished into thin air, apparently,” Genna says archly, cutting her brother off. “I do wonder at the current Kingsguard, if they truly were given the slip by a girl of nine.” She sniffs. “But King’s Landing is no place for a lone child.”

Berena is trying not to think along the same lines. If Ned has been arrested, then his household was either charged similarly… or are dead. And knowing Cersei… she holds out hope that perhaps one of Ned’s men survived, and managed to take Arya with them. They could be in the Riverlands by now, heading north. At the very least, it would mean that Catelyn may see one of her daughters returned to her. If not… Arya is a resourceful, clever girl, but she is still an innocent child. Berena does not want to consider what might happen to her, wandering the streets of King’s Landing. 

And Sansa… Berena does not hold Kevan’s confidence that she is being treated like a little princess. Cersei and Joffrey must be enraged by Ned’s actions, whether he denounced Joffrey as a bastard or even tried to take the throne by force, and she does not want to think of what they might do to his remaining daughter as punishment. The only thing she can think is that this means she must return to King’s Landing- to try to save Ned and Sansa if she can- but how? With what? She can hardly storm in and demand Cersei release her brother and niece.

“I know you’ve received woeful news tonight,” Kevan rises with a grunt. “But I hope you might join Dorna and I for dinner later, Berena. It is good to have you back here, where you belong.” He lays a paternal hand on her shoulder before leaving the room. Genna makes no moves to follow him. Berena stands quite still, trying to process all of it. What is she to do? What can she do? She has no army to summon, no sword to wield. She cannot force people to obey her wishes.

“Well,” Genna says after a moment. “Things are looking rather grim for House Stark at the moment. And House Lannister, if we are already at war with the Riverlands and on the brink of war with the North.” She regards Berena critically. “I’d say that Robb Stark will be calling his father’s banners soon, if not already.”

Berena gives a minute nod. 

“And King’s Landing,” Genna continues, “well, I don’t envy the Stark girl, either, alone at court, with none but Cersei looking after her. A girl of that age needs a mother. And Cersei…,” she snorts. “Well, I’m sure Cersei is still busy mothering Joff.”

“I need to go back,” Berena says aloud, although she might be better served to keep these thoughts to herself. “I cannot- my niece needs me, and my brother…” She sinks into a pained silence, before blurting out, “I cannot sit here while my kin are at the mercy of-,”

“Lannisters?” Genna should be angry with her, but she seems to be almost dryly smiling instead. “You’re right to be concerned. Our house hasn’t been noted for our merciful ways, not since Tywin took our father’s place.” She stands up, elaborate silken skirts rustling. “I cannot blame you for wanting to protect your brother and his daughter, Berena. They are your blood. Unfortunately,” she casts a hand around the room, decked out in scarlet and gold. “So are we.”

Genna purses her lips, and looks Berena up and down. “But you and I may find we have a similar goal. You want to return to court? You cannot go alone. Cersei would laugh you out- if she did not kill you first. Especially with that husband of yours run off to play…,” she shakes her head irritably. “Jaime was always the impulsive one. Silly boy.” She tilts her chin up slightly, and locks eyes with Berena. “Might I make a suggestion? If you plan to set foot in King’s Landing again, you needs do so with your armor on and an army at your back.”

Berena stares at her. Her husband’s aunt rolls her eyes. “A lady’s armor, sweet girl, is her courtesies, as I’m sure you know. It will take more than simpering to stand against Cersei. You will need to play her game. And to do that, you need pieces on the board. Women,” she smiles sharply, “whom you can trust not to abandon you to the wolves- or the lions, I suppose. Summon your ladies in waiting, or try to entice more.”

“They have no reason to stand with me against the queen,” Berena almost laughs in disbelief.

“Cersei has very few friends, even among her own kin,” Genna says. “And there is much to be gained at court- influence, loyalty, power-,” she shrugs again. “Men fight their battles, but while they are away, it is women who build up their houses, secure their legacies. Besides, they need not all hate Cersei as much as I’m sure you do. The appearance of power is sometimes just enough. The queen thinks you weak, friendless and alone, an outcast among your husband’s house. That has served you well, I’m sure, all these years, but things have changed now.”

Berena can’t help but narrow her eyes. “What good does it serve you to encourage me against Cersei? She is your own niece.” Is this some sort of long-winded manipulation attempt? What does Genna gain by pitting Berena against the queen? Or is she genuinely concerned over the affairs in the capitol? 

“And I love her as all aunts do, just as I’m sure you love little Sansa,” Genna says coolly. “But I do not think her particularly well-suited to ruling. Once, I had high hopes, but-,” she seems to be considering her words, “let us just say that at times I believe Cersei is her own worst enemy. She and Jaime have always had that much in common. My concern, Berena, is for House Lannister first and foremost. It does not serve us well to always play the villain. It does not serve us well to let Cersei alone steer the course.”

Genna pauses before the door. “And for the love of the gods, repeat none of this. Not to my brother, nor his wife, nor Darlessa or Alysanne. Although I think you will find her most eager of all to head to King’s Landing.” She leaves Berena behind, staring after her incredulously, as she walks briskly away, bearing as refined and haughty as ever. 

As much as Berena hates to admit it, Genna may have a point. She certainly cannot go charging back to King’s Landing without any support or a plan. She needs to stay here and try to consolidate some semblance of power, a genuine court of her own, western ladies whose husbands are pledged to Casterly Rock, before she makes any attempt at a return. Otherwise she might find herself a prisoner of the Red Keep as well- or worse. Berena has never considered herself to be all that charming, especially compared to the Lannister women, but what choice does she have? To gain power she needs influence, and to wield said influence correctly. She has tried her best to stay as far away from politics and court intrigue as possible all these years, but she has no choice. If she admits defeat now she will never forgive herself.

Her first step, she thinks, will be to visit Gerold at Ashemark.


	29. Chapter 29

Berena makes good time for her ride to Ashemark, reaching the tip of the Tumblestone river within six days. It helps, she supposes, that for the first time in over a year she is traveling with only a small company of guards, and not the children and other nobility. There is something freeing about being able to do ride as hard and fast as she likes without worrying over whether or not her daughters can keep up the pace or if her son has wandered off again. The weather is pleasant as summer still holds strong, and Berena welcomes the sight of Ashemark in the distance.

The castle is quite small compared to the Rock, but then again, most keeps are miniscule compared to the Rock. Berena has always quite liked the Marbrands, for Westermen, and she was always glad that Jaime kept the company of Addam Marbrand, who is one of the few truly decent men she’s had the pleasure of meeting in her thirty years. She had never worried about Gerold fostering with them, as painful as it was to send away her firstborn. The flaming orange and smoky grey banners of House Marbrand wave stiffly in the breeze as they ride through the open gates.

To Berena’s surprise, the yard is a mass of men and horses, squires carrying saddles and shields, and she realizes after a few minutes that they must be readying to leave for the Riverlands. She hadn’t considered that Tywin might be calling for reinforcements, but House Marbrand has always been one of the most powerful western houses. If anyone would be providing additional men, it would be them. 

“Lady Lannister,” Damon Marbrand booms from an archway, and Berena dismounts in order to curtsy properly, even as he bows to her. Damon Marbrand is a tall, powerfully built man with a bald head and a permanently ruddy face. Berena has met him several times before, and always found him likable enough, if notoriously short-tempered. “You have good timing,” he says, “Addam will be taking fifty men east starting on the morn. It was all I could do to keep your boy from joining them-,”

“Where is Gerold?” Berena tries to cling to what’s left of her patience, and then smiles forcefully. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen my son.”

“Training with Caleb, no doubt,” Damon barks a laugh, escorting her out of the bustling courtyard and past the stables. “A serious boy, your lad. I must say he reminds me of Tywin as a boy, when he’d visit here with my aunt Jeyne. Rarely a smile or laugh from that one! But a damn good bowman, my lady, if you’ll pardon my foul tongue. Never seen a mark that boy couldn’t hit.”

Berena sees him then; it has been nearly a year, but she would recognize her son anywhere. Gerold is tall and thin for his age, with narrow shoulders and long limbs he inherited from her. His hair is cut shorter and lighter than she remembers it, bleached from years of summer sun, but still a few shades darker than Jason and Lorelei’s golden blonde. She makes out the outline of his long face, tense with focus as he pulls back the bowstring and releases the arrow. It hits the chest of the dummy set up some yards away, and the older boy of eighteen or nineteen beside him whoops and claps him on the shoulder. 

“Caleb!” Damon bellows. “Come pay your respects to Lady Berena, boy!” Gerold turns, and stares at his mother for a moment, and Berena, in spite of her renewed attempts to control herself, nearly bursts into tears. It’s all she can do to keep herself from running to him. Instead she remains where she is as her son approaches, trailing after the more boisterous Marbrand boy, although the last time she saw Ser Addam’s youngest brother, he was only twelve or thirteen.

“Good day my lady,” Caleb inclines his head of scruffy red locks respectfully, and though he’s skinnier and taller than Robb, the resemblance is enough that Berena freezes for a moment before smiling graciously. “You’ve grown into quite the young man, Lord Caleb.”

“Ser, now,” Damon proclaims proudly, “he was knighted near six months ago, weren’t you- ah, here he is.” He cuts himself off as Gerold draws near, and Berena immediately embraces him; he’s up to her shoulders in height now, and she is still a tall woman; in another few years he will likely be much taller than her. It is always hard for her to find something of Jaime in him, but she thinks she sees his father in the set of his mouth and his hands- he has Jaime’s long, almost graceful fingers.

“Mother,” Gerold says formally, as Berena releases him, but his cheeks are flushed scarlet in embarrassment. He avoids her eyes, studying the ground briefly before glancing back up at Damon and Addam. “How are my sisters and brother?”

Berena squeezes his shoulder tightly. “Missing you fiercely.” She wants to say more, much more, but there is only so much that can be discussed in front of the Marbrands. Fortunately, Damon seems to take the hint after several more minutes of small talk, and strides off with Caleb to speak to Addam about something, leaving Berena and her eldest temporarily alone.

Gerold brings her to his room in the castle. It is smaller than the one slept in at the Rock until the age of eight, but Berena can still see traces of the child he was in it; there are two wooden swords under the bed, and some old toys and storybooks in the back of the dresser. Gerold sits down stiffly on the bed, his hands digging into his legs, and Berena sits beside him. 

“You are-,” she doesn’t know what to say. Gerold has always been more quiet, and she knows twelve is always horrifically uncomfortable an age, but she cannot tell if it’s simple adolescent brooding or if he’s troubled by something else. Of course she didn’t expect him throwing his arms around her, but he still seems- well, incredibly tense. She worries at what he has heard. Does he know about Tyrion? About Jaime and Ned? 

“I am almost a man grown, Mother,” Gerold finishes the sentence for her. His eyes are as grey as they always were, but she sees less of Ned in them at the moment and more of her father, as faint as her memories of him are beginning to grow. He has been dead for over half her lifetime by now. “I know you have come here to bring me back home, but my place is with my grandfather, not you and the children.” The children. As if he is not barely more than a child himself. All her children are seemingly in such a rush to grow old. They don’t understand. 

“With Lord Tywin?” Berena frowns and takes his hands in his own, but he pulls away. “Gerold, you cannot think-,”

“I am nearly ten and three, I am old enough to ride into battle,” Gerold insists. “I cannot go home like a little boy while our house is threatened-,”

“Gerold,” Berena says insistently. “What have you heard?”

He scowls. “That the Tullys and Starks have conspired against us to capture Uncle Tyrion, dethrone Joffrey, and sit Stannis Baratheon as king.”

Stannis Baratheon, Berena thinks, ill temper and cold demeanor aside, may be the best current candidate for the throne, given that Robert’s sole trueborn child is a girl of ten. But instead she sighs, debating on how to put this to Gerold. He may no longer be a little boy, but she cannot simply tell him that in fact, his cousin is a bastard and rather, not his cousin at all but his half-brother, sired by his own father and his aunt. She cannot tell him that one of his imprisoned uncles suspects the queen of murder and cuckoldry, and that his other imprisoned uncle is suspected of an assassination attempt on his younger cousin, crippled by his father.

“Your aunt has taken Tyrion, it is true,” Berena says instead, “and my brother, your uncle, has been arrested on grounds of treason. But this does not mean we are at all out war with the Riverlands and the North, Gerold. If Lady Catelyn releases Tyrion and a peace can be negotiated, this may all be resolved. Besides-,” she frowns then, looking into his eyes, those Stark eyes, whether he likes it or not, “war is not some game to be won. You cannot simply expect to go charging into battle at your father’s side-,”

“I don’t want to be at Father’s side,” Gerold snaps suddenly, and she draws back and stares at him. It is true that Jaime and Gerold are no longer as close as they once were when he was a small boy, but she had attributed it to her son’s withdrawn nature, Jaime’s tendency towards self absorption, and and the simple matter of age. Few fathers and sons enjoyed entirely peaceful relationships when said sons were in the process of becoming men. Her own father and Brandon had fought often enough.

“And why is that?”

“Because Father is-,” Gerold hesitates, regarding her warily, and then plunges on, “Father is not a lord the way Grandfather is, everyone knows I am grandfather’s real heir-,”

Berena ought to slap him, furious as she is with Jaime- he is still Gerold’s father, and deserves his respect, but instead she narrows her eyes at him. “Gerold. Of course your father is a true lord, he has been Lord Tywin’s heir since his birth. He may not- he may not conduct himself in the same way your grandfather does, but he is well accustomed to leading men-,”

“Father cares more about tourneys and hunting down bandits than he does ruling,” Gerold says sullenly instead. “He never taught me anything about the accounts or the land or how to take the lesser houses into hand properly.”

He does have a point. Jaime has never shown much interest in the actual act of ruling, and while he will be forced into the position when Tywin dies, Berena has always known he will need… guidance. She may not be the shrewd negotiator that Genna Lannister is, but anyone is level-headed and logical when compared to Jaime, who remains a man of impulse to this day. 

“There is more to ruling than the castle politics,” Berena says, although it is a weak argument to be sure. “Men like your father inspire great loyalty in their soldiers. They win the battles that ensure that men like your grandfather remain in power. A lord is nothing if he does not have the people’s support, if he cannot prove his mettle in the field-,”

“All the more reason why I need to be there,” Gerold’s brow furrows. “Mother, can’t you see?” He sits a little straighter, raises his chin. “If I don’t learn now, I may never have the chance again. I have to prove myself. I don’t want everyone to think I’m some spoiled little lordling who’s never held a sword except for show.” In that moment, he sounds so much like Jon that it pains her sharply. “I need to be a part of things. I can’t just sit here playing at archery.”

Berena knows she should be patient with him, knows she doesn’t want to make him resentful of her, but she can’t help herself. She is still his mother, and he is still her firstborn son. “Well, you are certainly not going to be riding into battle,” she snaps. “And that is final, Gerold. You are too young. You know nothing of war, nothing of the Riverlands, and I will not have my son dying in battle against his own bloody kin!” 

“But the Lannisters are your kin now,” Gerold mutters, and Berena looks away before she curses. Instead she stands, smoothing her skirts.

“That may be so, but that does not mean I want both my husband and my son riding off to war against my brother’s blood. You are not going. Even if you did, I promise you, your grandfather would send you back as soon as look at you. Do you think he would risk it? You are House Lannister’s future.” Gerold opens his mouth to argue some more, but a fierce look from Berena silences him.

“I am going to dine with the Marbrands tonight, and tomorrow morning we will go back to the Rock,” she says after a few tense moments. “But I am returning to court before the year’s end, with my ladies. Jason is going to foster soon, likely with the Estrens. And you-,” she hesitates, and Gerold spears her with a look that is equal parts lion and wolf.

“I’m coming with you, Mother.”


	30. Chapter 30

Berena has seen Gerold back to Casterly Rock, has summoned her ladies, excluding Johanne Crakehall, now Johanne Stackspear, who has recently given birth to her third son, and has made the necessary arrangements for the younger children. Jason will go to Wyndhall to foster; Corinne has a son close in age with him. Myriam and Lorelei will stay at the Rock with Myrcella and Tommen and little Joy Hill, their bastard cousin. And Berena hopes to return to King’s Landing with her retinue before the new year. 

But first, there is Kevan to consider. Affable as he might normally be, Kevan is still Tywin’s younger brother, and accustomed to being obeyed, not challenged. He has all but ruled the Rock in his father and nephew’s absence. However. He has never been the sole authority; no one can deny Genna’s unquestioned reign. She has the eyes and ears of every servant, the respect and fear of every lady, and plenty of the lords. So Berena counts herself lucky indeed that she has managed to land on Genna’s good side, for it turns this into a battle between siblings, one she can stay well out of.

She sits there like a child watching her parents bicker as Kevan and Genna go round for round, the years of experience and age melting away to reveal the simpler truths- Kevan is used to conceding, and Genna is used to having her way, ever the spoiled youngest child. Berena can certainly relate to that. “Don’t be ridiculous, brother,” Genna snaps at one point. “Who do you think will keep our dear niece in check while Tywin is carving a path for Riverrun and you are perched on the Rock?”

“Cersei is but the queen regent, and there are lords and advisors a-plenty to keep her from doing anything rash,” Kevin retorts. “I fail to see how your presence, sister, will do anything but incite even more-,”

“Nonsense,” Genna huffs. “I helped raise the girl, or had you forgotten? Who was it that was near mother to the twins and Tyrion, after Joanna passed? Certainly not your Dorna,” she rolls her green eyes. “Cersei is flush with victory and power- she has Ned Stark in a cell and his daughter at her beck and call. You should be concerned how easily she might overextend herself, slip, and topple House Lannister’s interests down with her.”

Berena cannot help it; she nearly smiles, for she can see Kevan’s conviction against them going wavering. “If you must go, so be it,” he argues in a more subdued manner, gaze flickering to Berena, “but Lady Berena should remain here. What good does it serve to bring her-,”

“What good? It shows the court that we may yet reach an accord with the North,” Genna jabs a ring-laden finger at his chest. “Stark’s heir is marching south as we speak. They may tussle with Tywin, and then turn their gaze to the capitol. We have enough to worry about with the Baratheons grasping at the crown like greedy children. I see no reason to bring a pack of wolves into the mix!”

Kevan opens his mouth, closes it, rubs a hand across his jaw, and then relents.

Berena had expected that saying her goodbyes to the children would be difficult. And it is, almost more than she can bear. Leaving them behind, dividing her family, has always been one of her worst fears. But there is no helping it. She cannot bring them back to court; will not risk their safety yet again, not with Robert dead and Jaime gone. It is bad enough that she is taking Gerold, but that is only because she fears that if she leaves him behind as well, the next she hears of him will be on the battlefield at his father’s side. 

Jason doesn’t seem terribly heartbroken, but she can attribute that to his age and the fact that he has been eager to serve as a page boy for some time now. He isn’t old enough to grasp just how lonely it can be, separated from your kin when you have known nothing else but their company. But he will be safe enough at Wyndhall, and that will have to suffice. She could not keep him in her arms forever.

The girls, on the other hand… Myriam is furious that Berena will not permit her to return to court with the older ladies, especially when girls like Sera Marbrand, Felicia Estren, and Keira Plumm will serve as part of Genna and Berena’s retinue. But they are girls flowered and of marriageable age, not ignorant little girls. And if Myriam is ignorant, perhaps Berena has only herself to blame, for not educating her to the harsher realities of the world. But Berena will not school her through a first hand experience, either. 

“It’s not fair,” Myriam makes one last impassioned attempt the night before Berena is set to depart. “Mother, please, I’ll be the perfect lady, I swear. I’ll be so good to cousin Sansa and Princess Cassana, Mother, I promise-,”

“It is not a question of your behavior,” Berena says patiently, doing her best to appear unruffled and unalarmed. “But court is not an endless parade of balls and elegant dinners, Myri. There are matters of politics and law to attend to as well, and for the time being, you are better served here, taking your lessons with Septa and Lady Dorna and the other girls, learning how to run a household.”

But Myriam doesn’t want to run a household, of course. She is ten, and will be eleven soon enough. She wants to be a princess, a girl in a fairy tale, all gossamer gowns and crowns of gold and rubies. No child wants to wait for their future to arrive; they all intend to rush towards it headlong instead. Only Berena has the hindsight her daughter does not. The future rarely lives up to one’s wildest dreams. She will not, cannot have another Lyanna on her hands.

Lorelei does not fight or rage at Berena; it’s not in her nature. Rather she recedes within herself, and Berena wonders if this is her fault, if she has coddled her youngest too often, for too long. Perhaps it will be good for her to go some time without her mother. But she is still only five. And Berena still sees that frail babe when she looks at her. And sees the babe that came before her as well. The one that did not live past the womb.

But she pushes the hurt and pain aside to promise Lorelei that she will write, so Lore must work on her letters so she can write her mother back, musn’t she? And then she reads her shy little girl one last bedtime story, although she fears her voice pales, without Jaime there to provide the necessary dramatic narration, making Lorelei squeal with laughter and burrow under the covers in trepidation.

They reach King’s Landing on the last day of the year. The interior of the Red Keep is in some ways almost unrecognizable. All traces of Robert have been scrubbed away, and Lannister crimson and gold can be seen in every corner. The court seems relatively barebones as well; surely some houses immediately fled back to their own keeps upon Joffrey’s ascension. Berena can hardly blame them. Joffrey has only sat the throne in truth for a matter of weeks. 

Genna believes that presentation is everything; she arranges for herself and Berena, clad in emerald green and honeyed gold, respectively, to lead the train into the throne room. Gerold is directly behind them, in between Alysanne, who has not smiled in months, and Darlessa, who seems mostly eager for the chance to see the latest fashions. “Do not speak unless you are bidden,” Genna tells Gerold sharply, and eyes a few of the youngest ladies, who are tittering nervously, as well. “Are you trained birds from the East? Restrain yourselves.”

Then she turns, plasters on a serene smile, and smooths back a few errant hairs, raising an eyebrow at Berena, who tenses minutely, then smiles as well. She has even done her hair up in the Southron fashion, after years of wearing it down or braided back to indicate her Stark roots. There is no room for that here, not now. They enter the throne room, and Berena’s field of vision narrows until all she can see is the Iron Throne, the boy on it, and his mother beside him.

“Your Grace,” says Genna warmly, dipping into a deep curtsey alongside Berena, knees nearly brushing the floor, as the rest of the women do likewise. “What joy it brings me to see you in your father’s seat, so noble and dashing.”

Berena would not go so far as to refer to Joffrey as ‘dashing’ in any sense of the word, but the boy has cause enough to immediately mistrust her, so she tries to appear as placid as possible, although she is glancing around for any sign of Sansa. 

“Aunt, my ladies” Joffrey sounds uncertain, looking to his mother for support. “Why have they come?”

Cersei only smiles, although it must be through her teeth. “To pledge their allegiance to you, of course, my young king.” Her gaze seems to be attempting to set Berena ablaze where she stands, some yards away. Berena gazes back simply, and then Genna’s words ring true, and she straightens, puts a hand on Gerold’s shoulder, and speaks.

“Your Graces, I speak truly when I say that I am horrified by my brother’s treachery,” Berena lies, spinning the words like yarn before her. “My heart breaks for you to bear such a weight so early into your reign- House Lannister and House Stark are bound through ties of marriage, after all.”

“A singular tie,” Cersei says sweetly, pointedly, gaze flitting over to Gerold in distaste.

“Still, I know my brother in his heart must regret his crimes,” Berena continues. “I hope you may find it in your heart to look mercifully upon him, Your Grace.” Joffrey looks more bored than anything else, as if this is a game that has gone on far too long. She adds swiftly, “And I hoped to bring comfort to my dear, sweet niece, your own betrothed. She is but an innocent child, and like a daughter to me.”

“I see your own daughters are not here,” Cersei surmises, and then stares at Berena for a long moment. “I am sure the child will welcome your… loving return, my lady. She has been most disturbed by her own kin’s treachery.”

“But House Baratheon of King’s Landing will prevail, Your Grace,” Gerold says seriously, earnestly, and Berena sees Cersei’s brief look of shock at the boy’s conviction. “Joffrey is the one true king.”

It repulses Berena to hear it from her own son’s mouth, but she can hardly fault him. He has not seen Joffrey in years. He knows very little of the boy’s true nature, or the real going-ons of court. It may shield him from Cersei’s suspicions, if anything, to see that he considers himself a Lannister wholly, despite the brown hair and grey eyes.

Joffrey smiles in a way that can only be described as sickening. “My thanks, cousin.”

Berena finds Sansa hours later when she at last is able to persuade a guard to bring her to the girl’s room. When she knocks on the door she hears the sudden rustle of clothing and patter of feet, and when it is opened finds herself face to face with her own niece, who looks torn between hope and what can only be described as sheer terror. They stare at one another for a few moments, and then Berena says coldly, “Allow us some privacy, if you please.”

As soon as the door shuts behind her, Sansa crumples, practically flying into Berena’s arms, sobbing and shaking, and Berena wraps her arms around her and sinks to the floor with her, rocking back and forth. “It’s alright, sweetling. It’s alright now.”

“I thought- I thought-,” Sansa is stammering between tears, but she never finishes the sentence, only shakes her head and clings to Berena all the more. “I’ve been so alone,” she finally gets out, and Berena knows that feeling well, better than Sansa could ever know.

She draws back a little, meets the girl’s Tully blue eyes, brimming wetly. “Not anymore.”


	31. Chapter 31

Berena wants nothing more than to storm down to the Black Cells and see Ned, but against every instinct, she knows better. Cersei would never permit it, even under guard- the woman is not fool enough to risk some sort of message being passed between the two. And while Berena could make an attempt at sneaking down there herself in the dead of night, the chances of being caught are too high, as are the consequences- she’d be brought up on charges of treason herself, and find herself and Gerold in a cell beside Ned’s.

Instead, she must bide her time. Ned cannot rot down there forever. And now there are more eyes, and pressure, on Cersei to do this the official way, which at least means he won’t be poisoned or butchered in his cell. Berena turns her attention to Sansa instead, specifically in ensuring that the girl spends as much time away from Cersei, Joffrey, and the throne room as possible. And it is much easier to shelter her in a group of ladies.

They spend much of their time outdoors in the gardens; autumn may be swiftly approaching, but the heat in the Red Keep is still nearly unbearable. Berena arranges for nearly all their meals to be outside, and takes long walks through the flowerbeds and hedgerows with Sansa and Gerold and often Alysanne as well. To see the two cousins together is odd; Gerold and Sansa last spent time with one another as small children, and both are clearly perplexed to see the other now half grown and awkward with adolescence. 

Sansa still has nothing but praise for Joffrey, but the look in her eyes is glossy and pained, and Berena holds her tongue keeps up a perpetual aura of ‘everything will be alright’, difficult as it might be to even convince herself. The ice they are on has never been thinner, and while she has a line of defense, a veritable shield wall, in the presence of Genna Lannister and the other western women, that does not mean any of them are untouchable, particularly if Cersei were to grow paranoid and decide they are all scheming against her.

Which they are, of course.

The only place where Berena can speak to Sansa freely and alone is the godswood. She and her niece are the only worshippers of the old gods in the entire keep. Gerold has not prayed at a heart tree in years, and as much as Berena dislikes not entirely trusting her own son, she cannot risk him repeating anything to gods forbid, Joffrey or the queen. It may be better to let him come to his own conclusions; Joffrey never could keep up that chivalrous prince act up long.

Once they are safely enshrined inside the wood, Berena draws Sansa close and for a few moments, pretends it is Myriam or even Lyanna that she is embracing. Then she draws back. “What happened?” she asks soberly. “Sansa, what became of your father’s household.”

Sansa bites her lip for a few moments, and then says carefully, “Father was surprised to hear you’d left, but then he- he said it was for the best, and he told Arya and I we had to be careful, and that he was going to send us home.” Her eyes well up with tears, but to Berena’s relief the girl blinks them away rapidly and composes herself. “Neither of us wanted to go but he said we had to, and that he had to stay to see things through.” She hesitates. “And- and I was angry with him, because he wouldn’t even tell me why, and he was treating me like a child-,”

“You are a child,” says Berena firmly, her stomach sinking.

“But I didn’t mean to- I was only-,” Sansa stumbles over her words and looks down guiltily, cheeks flushed.

Berena tenses. “Sansa… did you tell anyone what your father had told you? Did Arya?”

“Arya ran off to go hit things with her stupid sword,” Sansa snaps, but then falters again. “But I- I only told Cassana because I wanted to say goodbye. I thought it’d be… I couldn’t leave without telling her, she’s my friend,” she says plaintively. “So I… I told her we had to go back North, and she asked if she could come, and… and then a few hours later one of the Kingsguard took me to a room and asked me where Arya was, and I didn’t know, and I asked them if my father knew where I was, but…”

Berena exhales slowly through her nostrils, head sinking slightly. Cassana told Cersei what Sansa had told her. Not out of spite or malice- Berena doesn’t believe the girl is anything like her brother- her half-brother- but likely because she is a child still, just like Sansa, one who instinctively trusts her mother. Perhaps she hoped Cersei would be able to stop her cousins from leaving. And she did that and more.

“And then there was all this screaming,” Sansa sucks in a shaky breath, “and shouting and yelling and then they brought Jeyne to my room and she said they were killing everyone and she wouldn’t stop crying! And then they just left us there, and we fell asleep, and when we woke up the queen came in with Lord Baelish, and she said he would take Jeyne to see her father, and she said Father had done something terrible…”

“Did you ever see Arya? Did Cersei mention her?” Berena presses. Above them, the sun is shining brightly and the breeze is rustling through the trees, but she feels walled in, as if she were trapped at the bottom of a very dark well. Ned should never have told the girls they were leaving until he was putting them on the bloody ship himself. He shouldn’t have let them out of his sight, especially Arya.

But Sansa only shakes her head. “I don’t know where she went.” She looks on the verge of saying something else, and Berena reads it in her eyes; she is wondering if her sister is dead. Berena wraps an arm around her shoulders, and Sansa lays her head against her chest. She sinks to the ground beneath one of the trees, the long grass tickling at her hands. 

“If I can find her,” Berena says, “I will, Sansa. But I pray she has already escaped the city.” They sit there on the ground for a time, and for once she notes that Sansa seems unconcerned with her appearance, and Berena gazes up at the sky over the red walls and tries to pretend for a few minutes longer that everything will be alright, and that there is no need to worry.

Later, after some internal debate, she calls one of her maids. Roselle is in fact a cousin to Agnese, who has always been Berena’s maid at the Rock, but who rarely travels with her due to her own husband and children. Roselle is a freckled girl with a snub nose and coppery hair. She is very talkative, but Berena has never minded her chatter; it’s trusting. 

“If my niece is still in King’s Landing, I want her found,” she tells the girl. “But I do not think she will go with anyone in Lannister colors. For the rest of this week take one of the guardsmen with you out into the city for a few hours each day- Leo or Tate, perhaps, and dress normally. No scarlet or gold, no armor. She looks a good deal like me, my niece, but she may be dressed as a boy.”

Roselle frowns. “Pardon, my lady, but how are we to bring her back?”

Berena rifles through one of her jewelry boxes before her hand closes around a familiar shape. She presses the pendant into Roselle’s surprised hands; a snarling silver wolf’s head dangles at the end of the simple chain. 

“If you think you see her, approach her alone and tell her that her aunt is looking for her. Show her this. Don’t approach her with a man- she’ll likely run. If you do find her, bring her back to me, and only me. Don’t tell anyone else, don’t call her Lady Arya aloud, just escort her back to the keep and bring her straight to my rooms.”

Roselle curtsies obediently, although she still looks baffled, and Berena only hopes she is not making things worse. At the very least, she needs to be able to look Ned in the eyes and know she tried to save his girls. 

Genna has good news a few days later. Ned has agreed to confess to his ‘treason’ before the court. “Cersei means to pardon him for the sake of turning back the northern army,” she tells Berena, and looks to Alysanne, who is staring at her, riveted. “Catelyn Stark no longer holds Tyrion.”

Alysanne gives a little gasp of relief, but Genna continues, “His whereabouts are unknown- apparently she took him to the Vale, not Riverrun, to see her sister.”

“Lysa Arryn has him?” Alysanne demands, voice rising stridently, but Genna shakes her head. “Not anymore. He won a trial by combat, and they were forced to free him.”

This is good news, then, Berena cannot help but think. Tyrion is wily enough to negotiate safe travel to the Lannister encampment, wherever that may currently be. Once he is there, Tywin will no longer have cause to be in the Riverlands. The whole mess of strings may yet be untangled. Alysanne smiles a little, although the look in her eyes is still anxious. “He will find his way home,” she says, and Berena wishes she could say the same for her own husband. Or her brother. She addresses Genna, “The queen means to free my brother, then?”

“She means to spare his life,” Genna says coolly. “His crimes are still severe, you understand. But I imagine he will be sent to the Wall, after he commands his heir and wife to return home.”

The idea of Ned taking the black seems almost absurd, but Berena thinks after a moment of shock that it is perhaps the only good outcome there can be. At the very least, he will see Jon again, and more bloodshed will be spared. The men of the Night’s Watch will respect him. It will be torture for Cat, and terrible for the other children but- they may be able to eventually visit him, given time. Better for a man like Ned to at least live out his life with some honor than to rot in a dungeon for years to come.

“Then I am glad,” she murmurs eventually. “We all wish for peace.”

The day of Ned’s repenting dawns hot and dry. Berena dresses in her best, in a gown of red silk with a scooped neckline that reveals her pale collarbones, and she wears a gleaming golden lion above them, content in the knowledge that it’s twin silver wolf is currently prowling the city streets, sniffing out Arya. Her hair is piled atop her head, two looping braids teasing her ears, and rings gleam on her fingers. She barely recognizes herself in the mirror.

Gerold’s golden doublet suits him, and he looks almost handsome standing tall besides Sansa, who looks every inch a young Catelyn in her sky blue gown, smiling happily. She almost cried from relief when Berena told her the news, that her father was to be pardoned. Alysanne and Darlessa stand on either side of Berena and the two children, Alysanne in a flowing scarlet dress and Darlessa in a more ornate one of embroidered gold. The bells of Baelor’s great sept toll and toll high above them, and a crowd of common swells at the bottom of the marble steps.

When Berena sees Ned, she feels slightly short of breath, as if her chest is being compressed. Her brother can barely stand on his still-injured leg, the one Jaime broke, she remembers with a flash of fury, and he is thinner and gaunter than she ever remembers him being, his hair long and his beard graying. But he is alive and whole and his face is like stone, and when he sees her, she dares not call out to him or even smile, but his eyes widen in recognition, and Berena hopes he understands, hopes he knows that this is for the best, this is all that can be done, that she has tried.

“I am Eddard Stark,” Ned says wearily, “Lord of Winterfell and Hand of the King. And I come before you to confess my treason in the sight of gods and men.” But these are not his gods, nor hers, nor their people. That is a small ember of comfort Berena carries in her heart. It is not as if he really has sinned. This is all a farce, a play, an act that must be put on so more good people do not die.

But the crowd is screaming and jeering, and a few stones begin to sail through the air. Sansa flinches in front of her, and Berena puts a hand on her shoulder. Gerold stiffens, but does not turn to look at her, his gaze locked on his uncle. Ned continues to confess to plotting Joffrey’s murder. If only. 

If only Ned were the sort of man who would ever even consider such a thing. Berena does not wish for a crueler brother, but she does wish now, more than anything, that she’d had a less honest one. Ned is a good man and a good husband and a good father and a good brother, and a well-loved lord, but here… There is no place for that here.

Yet you demanded the same of Jaime, an insidious voice whispers, knowing he could never measure up. But that is not the same. It cannot be the same. Jaime may be as dishonest as Ned is honest, but he was never any better suited to politics, was he? Perhaps if he was, he wouldn’t currently be charging across battlefields and taking castles.

The High Septon is droning on, and Berena tries to listen, but she is still staring at her brother, unable to look away. A stone has struck him in the head, and the blood is trickling down. She squeezes Sansa’s shoulder gently. This will all be over soon. “What shall be done with this traitor, Your Grace?” he asks Joffrey, who steps forward, curls gleaming in the sun, head held high.

Cersei looks slightly relieved herself, as if she has been waiting some time to get this over and done with. For once, Berena is in perfect agreement with her.

“My mother bids me let Lord Eddard take the black, and Lady Sansa has begged mercy for her father,” Joffrey says in the same lofty tone he always uses as king. He glances back at the crowd of ladies, and smiles, white teeth and all, at Sansa, who looks quickly back at Berena, expression giddy, as if to say ‘you see?’.

Then Joffrey turns back to the crowd of hundreds, and declares, still smiling, “But they have the soft hearts of women.”

Berena stops breathing.

“So long as I am king, treason shall never go unpunished. Ser Ilyn, bring me his head!”

Sansa doesn’t scream. It’s more of a howl, a guttural shrieking nose that rips out of her, and Berena locks her arms around her niece as the High Septon blanches and pleads with Joffrey, and Lord Varys the eunuch hurries over, looking distraught, and even Cersei appears shocked, insistently saying something in Joffrey’s ear. But the boy only smiles as Ser Ilyn comes forward and the ringing in Berena’s ears grows louder and louder.

“Mother?” Gerold asks aloud in the trembling voice of a boy, not the man he keeps insisting he is, and Alysanne is crying beside her in shock, and Darlessa is murmuring about feeling ill, and Corinne says, “They can’t mean to…. Not here…” but trails off, speechless. “Turn away, turn away,” Elara is saying urgently, and Berena only stands there, paralyzed, watching as her brother is forced to his knees, unable to even fight to break free.

Then Genna is in her ear, saying, “Don’t let them see,” and Berena knows she means the children, means Sansa and Gerold, but she can’t… Her limbs have ceased to work at all and her grip on Sansa loosens and Sansa is still screaming as if she’s being tortured, wail after wail tearing out of her, and Gerold looks back at Berena helplessly and then looks as if he’s seen a ghost, for all the blood has drained from her face.

“Mother-,” he reaches out as if to take her arm, but Ilyn Payne has unsheathed his sword, only it isn’t his sword at all, Berena knows it, has seen it a thousand times, the sunlight shimmering on the black metal. Ice. Her father’s sword. Brandon’s would be sword. Ned’s sword. She makes a noise, a whimper or moan and then the sword comes flashing down and Sansa’s screams cut off as she goes limp, fainting, and Berena is left looking at where her brother was, where now there is only blood drenching the white marble and a headless corpse.

She does not remember what happens after. She knows she did not faint, that she must have propelled her legs to move, must have found a way to stand and walk away, but it all blurs together. It’s as if she dove deep under water to where she could no longer see the surface or the glint of the sun. Things happen around her but she is unaware of them. Berena finds herself back in her rooms and has no idea how she got there. Sansa is in the bed, barely conscious, weeping in her sleep. Gerold is sitting by the window, eyes red and face numb.

Berena is only there, existing, unable to speak or process what has happened at all, until there is a knock at the door. She does not move to answer it. Gerold looks from her to the bed to the door, and then slowly stands and goes to open it. Berena stares blankly at the wall. Imagines blood dripping down it. Ned or Joffrey’s, she cannot be sure. Gerold is saying something, and then there is the shuffling of feet.

“Mother- Mother?” A hand comes down on her own, and she doesn’t react. Fingers probe and squeeze. “Mother, please, look-,”

“Aunt Berena?” a small voice asks, and that breaks through the underwater feeling, and Berena sucks in a breath as if having just surfaced. She blinks, and looks at the ragged child, face swollen from crying, hair a matted, knotted mess, standing before her, clutching a thin sword. Around her neck, a silver wolf gleams on her filthy tunic. Ned’s eyes gaze at her anxiously from a dirty face.

“Arya,” Berena whispers, and her niece surges into her arms like a small wave, smelling of rotten meat and horse dung, but reassuringly there.


	32. Chapter 32

Berena wakes five days later to knocking at the door. She knows it is not a Kingsguard because they would not have bothered; she opens it to find a messenger from Genna, who informs her that the king expects them to be in attendance at court today. Berena nods and closes the door after the boy leaves. Then she leans against it and envisions barricading it shut. But there is no choice here, except to survive. She cannot think about Ned, or she will break down all over again. And there is nowhere safe enough here to show weakness, not even in front of her own kin.

Cersei found out about Arya’s presence a day after the girl was returned to her, by Berena’s own admission. Better to admit it to the queen herself then to let her find out and bring her wrath upon them all. Cersei tried to insist on seeing the girl, but Berena quite convincingly claimed that she was sickly and weak after so much time spent wandering the city on her own, that the girl was barely able to speak, nevermind dress and profess her loyalty to the king. It bought them time, at least.

Berena knows Arya. If they are not careful her head will join her father’s on a spike. Joffrey is just waiting for an excuse to punish her, to punish all of them. There is no room for error anymore. They have to be perfect. They have to be ready and willing to lie through their teeth, through false smiles, at any time. They have to be wolves in sheep’s clothing, to put it plainly, for that is the only way any of them will make it through the lion’s den.

For the first time in months, she desperately wishes Jaime were here. For Gerold and the girls’ sake, if not her own. At least then she could be certain Joffrey’s wariness of the Kingslayer would be put between them and Payne’s blade. Between them and Ice. Her husband’s son killed her brother with her father’s blade. It sounds like something out a rhyme. 

“Mother?” Gerold has bathed and dressed, at least, although he, like the rest of them, has barely set foot outside these rooms in nearly a week. He’s in all black, and his face is pale and drawn. Berena stares at him for a moment and then says roughly, “Go change. We will be at court today, and you cannot be seen to be mourning a traitor.”

He starts to protest. “But my uncle was to be pardoned-,”

“Listen to me,” says Berena in a low, cold voice, one she has only ever heard out of others’ mouths. Is this how Jaime felt when she found out about him and Cersei? Is this how he feels constantly? This relentless pressure, this sense of no escape? 

“Joffrey would like nothing more than to decorate the ramparts with our corpses. Do you understand? He does not care that you are his cousin, that I am his aunt by marriage, and that Sansa is his betrothed. He does not care that we are Lannisters and Starks. He only wants to hurt because he can. There are many men and women in this world like him, Ger. I’m sorry you had to meet one so young. But you cannot give him the chance. I won’t allow it.”

Sansa has awoken, face still tear-stained, and sits upright in bed, clutching the covers around her slender frame. Arya is beside her, pretending to still be asleep. Berena can tell just from glancing at her. Myriam does the same thing constantly.

“You will say ‘Yes, Your Grace’ to everything and you will not defy him and we will wait,” Berena’s voice cracks slightly, “until your father or Lord Tywin or Tyrion have returned and we have some guarantee of safety.”

Gerold swallows hard and then nods stiffly after a moment, Sansa wipes at her eyes, and Arya finally sits up, hair a bedraggled mess. Berena still hasn’t managed to get all the knots out, even with the help of a maid. “He killed Father, I hate him,” she and Sansa burst out vehemently at the same time, voices almost identical. They sound like Lyanna. The two sisters exchange a glance. 

I hate him too, more than I have ever hated anyone besides Aerys and Rhaegar, Berena thinks, but instead she says, “We must bide our time and be careful, or he will kill us all. Do you hear me, girls? You must be strong. For each other and for the sake of your father,” she feels her eyes well up at the end, but she blinks the tears away before they can fall. 

“We need to stick together now. It will not be like it was before King Robert died. It will never be like that again. You do not go anywhere without me. You do not speak to anyone without me. And you never-,” her breath catches in her throat, “let this place turn you against one another. You are sisters. You are of the same blood. The time for bickering and petty grudges is over.”

There is silence for a few moments, before Arya says, “Father said the same thing before… before everything happened.”

“He didn’t say anything to me,” Sansa sounds slightly stung, but doesn’t glower at her sister, and for once, Arya does not snap something back at her. 

Berena regards them painfully for a little longer, and then says, “Arya, go in the other room. We will tell the king you are still sick. We cannot use the excuse much longer, but I will not have you at his court today.” She is not sure what Joffrey has planned, but as long as she can keep Arya, at the very least, well away from him, she will. Sansa and Gerold can at least be relied upon to hold their tongues and not rise to any bait he may dangle. Arya might very well throw herself at him and try to gouge his eyes out, not that Berena could blame her.

She and Sansa have both bathed and just finished dressing when Joffrey, the Hound, and two Kingsguard arrive. House Clegane is ever a devoted follower of House Lannister, and contemptuous as Sandor Clegane might be on any given day, he knows enough to incline his head slightly to Berena, who nods in return, her fingers white-knuckled on Sansa’s slumped shoulders. Berena is wearing a gown of the darkest green she could find, and Sansa is wearing a lighter shade, and the swell of protectiveness she feels is such that the girl could almost be her own daughter.

“Oh, good,” Joffrey says, thin lips curling as he looks them up and down. Gerold stands just beyond them, expression entirely stoic. “I was afraid we’d have to drag you out of bed, my betrothed.” His tone implies that he would have rather enjoyed that. Sansa cringes away from him, backing into Berena, who stands firm and tense. She should have slit his throat with her hunting knife at the Ruby Ford. He was a monster then, and he is a monster now.

The king’s green eyes narrow. “And where’s the little wolf bitch?” He glances around as if expecting Arya to drop down from the ceiling and maul him. It is probably one of the wisest things he’s ever done. Berena thinks.

“My niece is still weak and ill from her time lost in the city, Your Grace,” Berena says quietly, keeping her tone meek and deferential. “I pray she continues to recover; she is just a child of ten.”

“She’s a savage,” Joffrey snaps, “just like the rest of her traitor house.” He eyes Sansa cruelly. “If your sister ever tries to strike me again, I’ll take both her hands. She’ll learn to obey. Just like you.”

“Please, Your Grace,” Sansa begins in a voice barely above a whisper, but Berena digs her fingers into the girl’s shoulders, and she goes silent, bowing her head.

“I should have had your father flayed,” Joffrey continues, “or torn apart by dogs or horses. You should be thanking me for giving him such a clean death, my lady. Your aunt will, won’t she?” He looks directly at Berena, who does not flinch, and says in a voice entirely devoid of emotion, “My thanks, Your Grace.” She can sense Gerold stiffening out of the corner of her eye, and silently wills him not to speak.

But Sansa has enough of Arya in her to whisper in open revulsion, “I hate you.”

Berena freezes, Joffrey’s expression grows even crueler, if that is possible, and he sneers, “My mother tells me it isn’t fitting that a king should strike his wife. Good thing I’m not marrying your aunt. Ser Meryn.” Sansa blanches in horror and clings to Berena, who barely has enough time to try to turn away before the knight is upon them, shoving Sansa out of the way with one hard push, and grabbing Berena by the hair. 

She instinctively tries to rip away from his grasp, but he backhands her across the face. She staggers and nearly falls, and Gerold makes a noise like a yell and rushes to her side. “Gerold, don’t,” Berena says thickly, wiping at the blood dripping from her ear, as he moves towards Trant. Joffrey is nearly smiling. Gerold stops, reluctantly.

Sansa fell to the floor when Trant pushed her, and now she struggles to her feet, weeping openly once more. “Don’t hurt her, I’m sorry, I won’t say it again, I’m sorry Your Grace, please-,”

“Will you obey me now?” Joffrey asks.

“Yes,” Sansa says fervently, grabbing Berena’s hand with her own, “I swear I will, my lord.” To Berena’s shock, she moves in front of her as if to shield her from another blow, crying as she is.

There is a faint sound from the other room, and Berena fears Arya has heard all of this, but fortunately she does not come running out with Needle. Gerold is breathing harshly as if he’d just run a race in front of her, grey eyes flickering from her to Joffrey, and Berena sees sheer hatred in them for the first time. It’s unnerving. She is certain that if Gerold had a sword on him now he would have rammed it through the king’s throat, and for that she is almost thankful. Jaime raised him well in that sense, at least.

“Your Grace,” Joffrey says after a long moment. “You will address me as Your Grace. All of you. I shall look for you in court.”

Berena looks to Ser Meryn, who was entirely expressionless, and Ser Arys as they leave. Arys at least has the sense to look ill at ease with what had just occurred, with the blood now trickling down Berena’s neck. Clegane pauses on his way out, and looks at Berena as if he wanted to say something, but only gave a slight shake of his head.

As soon as the door had shut behind them, Sansa embraces Berena. “I’m so sorry,” she sobs, “I’m sorry, Aunt, I didn’t- I didn’t mean for him to hurt you, I’m sorry-,” 

“It’s alright,” Berena says, stroking her still damp hair, as Arya creeps into the room, eyes widening at the blood and swelling bruise on Berena’s face. 

“Trant is a dead man,” Gerold grinds out. “He struck you, Mother- you are the lady of Casterly Rock! You are a Lannister!” He seems almost more shocked than angry, as if he cannot believe his eyes. Berena pities her son, in that moment. Women are still women, and men like Trant and Joffrey are still men, regardless of their titles.

“Your father will take his head for that when he returns,” is all she says, and focuses on the image of Jaime cleaving a clean arc of blood and bone through Trant’s thick neck. Perhaps she will have it mounted on a wall back at the Rock. Her ear is still ringing painfully, and she massages the side of her forehead. This is the first time any man had ever dared strike her. 

She supposes she is still a bit in shock herself. She has been shielded from this sort of violence for many years now, by virtue of her birth and marriage. But better her to suffer at the hands of a man like Trant than Sansa. She is not a little girl of twelve. She is no fragile woman, and if Joffrey thinks she will be undone by one blow, he is so very mistaken.

“Uncle Jaime broke Father’s leg,” Arya says suddenly, and they all turn to look at her. She has Needle in her hands. “But when he comes back, he will kill them all, won’t he? Can he kill Joffrey?” Her eyes are alight with a childish sort of hope. Berena is very grateful that she does not know the rest of it, that none of them know the full extent of what Jaime and Cersei have done.

“I wish he could, sweetling,” she dares not raise her voice above a whisper to say it. Then she exhales, and tries to ignore the pounding in her head. “Arya, back to bed. Sansa, here, come help me wash and powder my face. We must look our very best for court, mustn’t we?”


	33. Chapter 33

Berena’s bruised face has long since healed on Joffrey’s thirteenth name day. It has been a month since Ned’s execution and all that followed it, and it has been a month since she has felt able to breathe freely. She dreads most days, and spends much of her free time on the edge of her seat, waiting with bated breath for the Kingsguard and Joffrey to appear. When word came of Robb’s coronation as King in the North, he set Ser Boros Blount on Sansa, and Arys Oakheart had to restrain Berena from shielding her niece. But nimble little Arya threw herself at Blount, clawing and kicking, and nearly had her nose broken for the trouble.

Now they are gathered in the bailey for a small tourney; Joffrey insisted, even if the court is perhaps a sixth of its former size during Robert’s reign. The western ladies and the few lords who accompanied Berena and Genna make up most of the audience, aside from Lannister guards, young squires, and the princess Cassana. Cersei is not in attendance, infuriated that Tywin has set up camp at Harrenhal, rather than returning to the city with his army. In a sense, Berena can understand her outrage; if Stannis or Renly reach the city quicker than expected, they will be taken completely unaware. 

There is no hope of any intercession by Jaime; he has been captured by Stark forces at the Whispering Wood. Berena cannot bring herself to feel much in the way of pity; Robb will treat him well enough out of duty, since he is still wed to Robb’s father’s sister. And even if Catelyn might wish him dead, and might have every right to, they would not dare sacrifice such a notable prisoner. Tywin will free him one way or another. What Berena prays for is that Cersei can be convinced to trade the Stark girls for Jaime. Yet even then- Joffrey will never recognize an independent North, nor will Tywin. 

She sits below the royal box, where Joffrey lounges on a makeshift throne, flanked by two equally miserable looking girls; Cassana is sitting as far from her brother as possible without physically throwing herself out of the box, and Sansa is beside him, looking as though she might be ill from him taking her hand in his own. Berena cannot do much more than glance up at her niece from time to time, and try to look as reassuring as possible.

“I never told you the whole tale of when Lady Genna heard Trant had laid hands on you,” Corinne is murmuring to her in a forcefully light tone, so that anyone not paying close attention might think they are indulging in idle gossip. They could even be discussing Gerold, who is riding in the lists today. Berena had not the heart to forbid him; he is tall and strong enough to mount and charge a stallion, and it is hardly as if he is going up against any great opponents today.

“I know she had words with the queen,” Berena says, in between bouts of polite applause. She hopes Ser Arys lands on his neck, the coward, apologizing before he strikes a little girl. 

“Oh, she had more than words,” Corinne huffs in amusement. “She threatened to send a raven directly to her brother himself, to inform him that a lady of House Lannister had been so disrespected. Said if Lord Tywin were here Trant would be hanging from the ramparts by now. Cersei tried to play the fool of course, said she had no control over what Joffrey did with his own guard.”

“Surely even Tywin cannot force the king,” Berena murmurs. “And I am more concerned for Sansa than myself- she is to marry him. Or Arya. She will not speak to me since I took the little sword from her, but if she had swung at Trant or Blount with that thing she would be dead.”

“Lord Tywin can do a great many things,” Corinne shrugs neatly. “I think we will see a snarling lion cub turned into a mewling kitten when he arrives.”

If he arrives, Berena thinks dismally. It is all well and good to fear Tywin’s wrath from here, but without his physical presence- Genna can threaten all she likes, but in the end she was interceding for Berena’s sake, not Sansa’s or Arya’s. Sansa is not a Lannister, and as such however Genna or even Cersei might disapprove, her only true guardian here is Berena, and the same goes for Arya. Joffrey has not the sense; he is the sort who wouldn’t fear a lion by its distant roar, but only when it was close enough to claw him apart with one swipe.

And that crimson comet lingers still overhead; no one can agree whether it is a tiding of fortune or misfortune. Berena is not sure which to hope for; at this point wishing misfortune for the Lannisters means misfortune for herself. Continued success for Robb’s army means further suffering for his sisters. There is no easy answer. If she could take Gerold and Sansa and Arya back with her to Casterly Rock this instant she would, but fleeing the city a second time would not be nearly so easy. And there are plenty of dangers on the road as well.

Most of the servants, it seems, thinks the comet resembles a dragon’s tail. Berena cannot help but feel like laughing hysterically at that; Targaryen or Lannister on the Iron Throne, King’s Landing has spelled nothing but doom for her own kin. She wonders if Myriam and Lorelei can see it from the Rock, or if little Bran can from Winterfell. 

The tourney moves quickly; there is only a joust, and no melee or archery. Gerold beats both of the Redwyne twins in the joust, but is unhorsed by Balon Swann. Berena holds herself tensely until she sees her son get up again from the ground, winded by unharmed. To her satisfaction, Swann goes on to defeat Morros Slynt, son of Janos Slynt, who held Ned down that day as Ilyn Payne unsheathed Ice. The Slynts are newly made nobility, if one can call it that.

When Lothor Brune is set to ride against Dontos Hollard, Alysanne says under her breath, but loud enough for Berena to pick up, “Gods, I can smell the drink on him from here.” Hollard is indeed drunk; half-dressed and red-faced, swaying on his feet in contrast to the grim-looking Brune. Corinne turns up her nose beside Berena, and Elara averts her eyes in distaste, urging scandalized young Keira Plumm and Sera Marbrand to look away. Arya is staring, wide-eyed, in between them, fists clenched at the sides of her rumpled dress.

Berena chances a glance back up at the royal box, even as the stands around them seize with laughter and mocking shouts. Joffrey does not look amused, and Sansa is staring determinedly at her lap, shoulders hunched. Eleven year old Cassana is flushed red with either mortication or fear, continuously looking to her brother, anticipating an outburst. When Dontos collapses into the dirt, calling for wine, she watches the king’s face redden.

Joffrey stands up, and Arya comes alert, instantly swiveling round in her seat to scowl up at him. Berena puts a hand on her shoulder in warning. “A cask from the cellars!” Joffrey calls, lips curling in a familiar ugly sneer. “I’ll see him drowned in it.”

“You can’t,” Sansa gasps beside him, and Berena cringes, because she cannot come between her niece and a blow from here. Joffrey whirls on his betrothed, and Arya tries to stand, but Alysanne yanks her back into her seat.

But to Berena’s surprise, Sansa manages to salvage the situation, with more than a bit of help from Sandor Clegane, who clearly has a soft spot for the girl. Berena cannot imagine the Hound having any weaknesses for earnest young maidens, but there have always been rumors of a sister who died suddenly and quite young. She feels for him them, burned face and all, as he comes to Sansa’s defense, however crudely.

Hollard is dragged off by guards to sober up, and Joffrey dismisses the master of revels with a wave of his ringed hand, ending the tourney. “I’d have them all put to death,” Berena can hear him saying as the crowds begin to stand and disperse, “only it’s my name day.”

“I wanted to see the end of the tourney,” Cassana speaks up sullenly, glowering at her brother.

“I don’t care what you want,” Joffrey retorts. “What interest do you have in a tourney? You’re a stupid little girl.”

Cassana’s square Baratheon jaw trembles with anger, and Berena sees now that the girl does have her father’s terrible temper, along with his look. “More than you. You’ve never even ridden a list.” It is an uncharacteristically bold move of the girl, and Berena sees Arya give a small, spiteful smile, watching Cassana address him so defiantly.

“Speak to me like that again,” Joffrey snaps at his sister, “and I’ll have Ser Meryn give you something to cry about.”

“I’m a princess,” Cassana draws herself up almost fiercely, pushing back her shoulders and narrowing her Baratheon blue eyes. “You can’t hurt me. Mother wouldn’t let you.”

“Mother’s not here now, is she?” Joffrey mocks, but his unease at being so directly challenged is evident. There is truth to Cassana’s words; ordering violence towards Sansa or Arya, both hostages, is one thing. Cassana is a trueborn princess of House Baratheon, and what’s more, Cersei’s own child. She may plainly favor Joffrey, but Berena knows instinctively that daughter of Robert or not, Cersei would kill anyone who so much as laid a finger on the girl.

But before Joffrey can make good on any threats there is the rumble of the gates opening, and those who remain in the stands look in alarm to see a column of riders entering. Berena glimpses Lannister banners and for a split second thinks that perhaps Tywin has retreated from Harrenhal after all. But then she sees the freeriders in the midst, and the worn down armor and shields, the tribespeople in their blood-stained leather. 

At the front of them all is a familiar face, although his beard is longer than Berena has ever seen it. Alysanne leaps to her feet and runs down from the stands, picking up her scarlet red skirts, her hair coming down from its formal updo. “Uncle!” someone calls, and Berena realizes it is Gerold, not quite running, but jogging over to the little man on the big horse as well. Her eldest son has always been fond of Tyrion, and now he is wearing as near to a smile as she’s seen since Ashemark.

Joffrey has gone a bit pale in shock, and Cassana easily skirts around him and the Hound, clambering down to greet her uncle as well, a rare childish grin blooming on her face. “Uncle Tyrion, you came back!”

Tyrion appears to be rather busy kissing his wife, whose muffled cries of relief echo out across the bailey. But he does dismount, and approaches Joffrey with his openly relieved wife at his side and his nephew and niece just behind him. “Your Grace.” He sinks slowly to one knee. 

“You,” Joffrey says in an accusatory tone.

“Me,” Tyrion agrees, and Berena is glad to see that he has not lost his sense of humor.

“They said you were dead,” the Hound rasps.

“He’s not dead,” Cassana sounds almost triumphant, then adds a bit bashfully, ducking her head, “And I’m glad, Uncle.”

“I’m not,” mutters Arya, just loud enough to be heard, and Tyrion looks over in the direction of her and Berena, expression softening slightly. “Ah, my favorite goodsister. I am sorry for your losses, my ladies.” He inclines his head to Arya and Sansa. “Truly, the gods are cruel.”

Sansa appears stunned, and Arya eyes him warily. It falls upon Berena to respond, but she is so relieved by his presence that she can barely find the words. At last she settles upon, “They are, but they are a little kinder to have brought you here in one piece, brother.” The girls look at her aghast, but she means the last word in every sense of it.


	34. Chapter 34

Berena is immensely grateful for Tyrion’s presence. With him he has brought three hundred men to defend the city, and the mountain clans of the Vale to defend the innocents at court. They may not be pretty to look at, but Berena knows that is the point- Joffrey and the Kingsguard will not dare raise a hand to either of the Stark girls now. Even Cersei shudders to go near them, which allows Berena a bit more freedom, and consequently the children as well; she keeps them well away from the throne room and the now constant Lannister infighting that the court has dissolved into.

Cersei is immediately at Tyrion’s throat, of course, with Genna occasionally interceding, but Berena doesn’t care. The more preoccupied and paranoid Cersei is about Tyrion’s schemes, the less time she has to devote to threatening anyone else. She doesn’t want to know about the plans to stave off the Baratheon brothers and secure the city, because in the end, her political weight only stretches so far as to ensuring her nieces are well-treated and supported. Whatever the small council is planning… well, at the very least, the common desire to not die on the swords of either army should win out in the end.

Alysanne is thrilled to have her husband back, although Tyrion had, of course, immediately tried to send her back to the Rock. Thus far, she has refused, and Berena knows he not only fears her being in the city when it comes under siege, but what Cersei might stoop to in an effort to intimidate or harm him. Privately, Berena counsels her to go back west as well; Tyrion will have an easier time as Hand knowing she is safe, and her children are still young. Myrcella is Lorelei’s age, only six, and Tommen is but four.

A vicious little voice tells her that perhaps she could consider the same, that her own children have now been several months without her, that they might as well be orphans, with a father in some dungeon cell and a mother in a gilded cage of her own making. But she will not leave without Sansa and Arya. She cannot abandon them as she did Ned. Her conscience won’t allow it. They simply need to hold out a little while longer, until either Robb’s army or Tywin’s pushes south. She tries not to think about the consequences of either one triumphing over the other.

But for the time being, she has a reprieve. She’s far from relaxed or anything approaching it, but she sleeps a little sounder at night and does not spend every waking moment glancing over her shoulder. Of course, with sounder sleep comes nightmares. She did not have any in the raw and bloody days following Ned’s execution, but now they flood in all at once. Fortunately she never wakes up shrieking like a child, but the tears flow hot and heavy. 

She dreams of her brother’s head lolling on the sept’s pure white steps, of Sansa’s howls, of Gerold’s frightened grey eyes. She dreams it is herself in Ned’s place, held down by Trant and blount as Ice comes slashing down at her neck. She dreams of Joffrey ordering Gerold’s execution with a mocking smile, she dreams of Jaime in the crowd, watching silently. And she dreams of Brandon and Lya and Ned and Father, skin white as snow and eyes cold as stones, wraiths grasping at her from the shadows, urging her to join them, her family.

Still, Berena would rather nightmares in her sleep than nightmares while she’s awake. With the added assurance of Tyrion and his forces, she turns to the children’s wellbeing, and not just their physical safety. One can be entirely unharmed and still feel as though they are being tortured all day, every day. She knows this well. Sansa and Gerold have an easier time of it; they are older and more used to formal settings. Arya was allowed to run wild at Winterfell; she cannot simply scamper outdoors here.

“I am giving you your sword back,” Berena tells her one evening after dinner, as she brushes out her hair. She brushes both of the girls hair not just because they seem to prefer it to the maids, but because it reminds her of her own daughters, and if they all close their eyes, they can pretend she is Catelyn and she can pretend they are Myri and Lore. Arya’s hair is longer now, as is Sansa’s, and while not as thick and curly as her older sister’s, it still smells of the North and woodsmoke and the pines to Berena.

“Why?” Arya asks cautiously after a few moments.

“Because it does no one any good locked away in a trunk, and because I can think I can trust you not to try to run the king through.”

“I should,” Arya hisses under her breath, but she doesn’t argue. “He deserves it. They all do.”

“They do,” Berena agrees, working out a particularly hard knot, “but you and I both know that people rarely get what they deserve. I know you have some talent with your little Needle, so I say we let your cousin Ger train you in the godswood. Quietly,” she adds with a bit of force. 

“I don’t want Gerold to train me,” Arya mutters. Sansa and Gerold are friendly with one another, but Arya is more closed off. Berena thinks that perhaps Gerold reminds her a bit of Jon, and that is where the hurt creeps in. She may very well never see Jon again. “I can practice by myself,” she adds defensively. “He doesn’t know how to fight like Syrio. He doesn’t even think girls can fight!”

“Then you can show him,” Berena says patiently. “Knock some sense into him?” She gives Arya’s hair a playful tug, and her niece relaxes slightly. “You can start tomorrow morning before breakfast.”

She makes plans to practice the high harp with Sansa and Elara several days later, but those plans are curtailed when she recieves word from Alysanne. Words, to be exact. Berena has not had the luxury of public anger since she returned to court, but now she does not bother to hide the look on her face and the visible unease of the boy escorting her to the Tower of the Hand. Podrick Payne is a skinny little thing who looks younger than his eleven years, but Berena has little sympathy for him at the moment.

He knocks timidly on the door of Tyrion’s solar, the sound barely audible, until Berena impatiently brushes past him and throws open the heavy door. Tyrion is turned away from her, and greets her with a sardonic smile, which immediately fades when he realizes she is not Cersei. “I was expecting the wrong sister,” he says, and seems to take it from the look in Berena’s cold grey eyes that this is not the time nor place for japes.

Podrick stands helplessly in the doorway for a few moments before Tyrion glances him and he hastily bows and scurries off. “Would you like some wine?” Tyrion asks after a moment. “I keep meaning to offer you a drink, Berena. You of all people deserve one.” He does feel at least a bit of guilt; she can tell from his tone alone. Berena does not pretend to know all the inner workings of Tyrion’s mind, for he’s cleverer than her by far, she’ll readily admit, but she does know his heart well enough. She watched him grow up from a painfully lonely boy of twelve to the man he is today.

“And you of all people should know that I am not here in the mid-morning for a bloody drink,” Berena would very much like to hit him, but instead she digs her nails into her crimson skirts, and spits out, “My own daughter, and you’d think to sell her off to the Martells!”

Tyrion regards her carefully. “I see you have your own little birds flitting about, listening where they ought not to be.”

“I had no need of them today,” Berena snaps, and then feels a stab of guilt herself as the realization sets in his eyes. She may be infuriated with him, but Alysanne is like a sister to her.

“My own wife reports on me,” he says bitterly.

“Your own wife would not have breathed a word of it had it not concerned her own niece- and yours!” Berena retorts, nostrils flaring. “How dare you. I forbid Myriam from coming to court with me to protect her, and now you would toss her to the Martells! For what?” she demands. “What did Doran Martell promise you, then? How many men?”

Tyrion blinks slowly, and then says in a purposefully moderate tone, “Berena, you know it brings me no joy, but what choice did I have? Myriam is eleven years old. She is a little child no longer, and she would have to be betrothed sooner or later for the interests of House Lannister.”

He is right, in a sense. Berena did not marry for love, her parents did not marry for love, and her children would certainly not marry for love. Like all mothers, of course she’d had hopes that they would come to love their wives and husbands, but that had always seemed so distant, a far away dream. But even in a time of war like this, she had not imagined.... She thought the children were safe at Casterly Rock. Now she sees that none of them are truly safe anywhere. 

“You have a princess,” she struggles to keep her voice from rising any further, “you have Cassana!” Then she says no more, because she is simply offering one sacrifice in place of another, and they both know it. She would be saddened to see Cassana go, even worry and fear for the girl, but Cassana is not her blood, and Cassana is certainly not her own daughter, birthed from her womb, nursed at her breast, raised by her own hands.

“A singular princess,” Tyrion says tightly, “who also happens to be Joffrey’s heir, and as he is yet unwed and without a son-,”

Berena cringes visibly; she still cannot fathom the idea of Sansa wedding Joffrey. She would rather a thousand blows than see her given over to that monster permanently. She is not sure Sansa would even live long enough as Joffrey’s queen to bear him a child, nevermind that she is yet unflowered, and Berena prays, will stay that way for some time.

“You see why I cannot simply promise her to Dorne,” Tyrion continues.

“But you can promise my daughter,” Berena shakes her head. “The Martells hate House Lannister. Hate your father. Hate your sister. Hate her father, the Kingslayer. What do you think they will do with my daughter?” Myriam may not look entirely Lannister, but she has their green eyes and their name, and Berena does not think the Martells will care either way. She is not here shielding Sansa from abuses to see them heaped upon her own child in a foreign land.

“And their hatred goes back a single generation,” Tyrion insists, taking a seat. “And it lies with Doran, not all his kin. Myriam will wed the youngest; Trystane Martell is only a year her elder. The boy is no monster, and neither is his father. They will not harm her.”

“You cannot know that,” Berena says through grit teeth.

“She will hardly go alone, Berena- Rosamund and Myrielle will accompany her, and I will send Ser Arys Oakheart as her sworn shield. She is a descendant of kings and high lords, her own cousin sits the throne, and her brother will one day rule as Warden of the West,” Tyrion does not break eye contact with her, his mismatched eyes newly disconcerting in Berena’s mind. “Doran Martell is an honorable man, not unlike your own brother-,”

“Do not speak of Ned to me,” Berena hisses, and he quiets for a moment.

“I have also offered him Gregor Clegane’s head, a seat on the council, and additional lands in the Marches. Cersei thought me altogether far too generous.”

“Well, it is hardly her own daughter being auctioned off.” Berena is thankful Cersei is not here now, or it would end with blood drawn from one of them, she is certain of it, and without any Kingsguard to step in. 

“Berena, she will marry a prince,” Tyrion tries a different tactic. “Surely that is every girl’s dream. Trystane can offer her far more than any western lordling she might have wed instead.”

“Sansa dreamed of marrying a prince, and that prince had her father butchered like a common criminal in front of her very eyes,” Berena snaps, but she can see that this is a losing battle. When it comes down to it, Myriam does not belong to her. She belongs to House Lannister, and she will go where they please, when they please. Berena cannot magically pluck her up from the Rock and hide her away from the world. 

Tears dampen her eyes, and she wipes at them as Tyrion looks away uncomfortably. “She is still unflowered. She is a sheltered child, Tyrion. I want your word- and theirs- that she will not be wed before she is sixteen.”

“Of course,” he says patiently, “and when we have vanquished Stannis and Renly you may visit her as often as you please, I promise you that, good sister.”

That may very well be years, but Berena says nothing. The weight has returned. Now all her children will be separated, just as she and her siblings were. “How many men?” she asks once more, hollowly.

Tyrion swallows hard. “Fifty thousand. He will join us, and not Renly, and everyone in this castle may live through the coming battles.”

Some more deserving than others, Berena thinks. She moves to the cabinet on the side of the room. “I will take that drink now, I think.” Tyrion knows better than to move from his seat.

“I hope you can come to forgive me, Berena. I do not take this lightly.”

“No,” Berena says, pouring herself a cup of Arbor red, ignoring the slight shaking in her hands. “But you have a little daughter of your own, and when the time comes to barter her for soldiers, you must not expect me to shed any tears, Tyrion.”


	35. Chapter 35

Berena has yet to forgive Tyrion, even six moons later, after Renly’s mysterious death and the encroaching threat of Stannis’ newly bolstered army, even after Myriam is well on her way to Sunspear from Oldtown, but she is grateful. For it is him who gives her the news of Winterfell’s fall to the Ironborn, and Bran and Rickon’s fates, and as gently as one can put such a thing. She would rather hear it from him than Cersei, Varys, Littlefinger, or even Genna. 

On some level, she is more shocked than anything else. The idea of Winterfell ever being taken by an invading force, and during a surprise attack in the dead of night at that, is simply… It doesn’t feel very real. That Winterfell could fall- and without a siege or great battle- seems almost absurd. But she cannot imagine why anyone would make the tale up, and she can certainly believe that Theon Greyjoy may not have been as loyal as he professed. Who would be? He was taken from his kin at ten, not as a swaddled babe. He is old enough to remember who killed his brothers and crushed his father. 

But Bran and Rickon… Berena finds herself frozen at the thought of that. She can easily see Theon becoming a turncloak and trading in his ‘brotherhood’ with Robb for a seat at his own father’s table and a command of his own, but still- Theon grew up with those boys, was near an elder brother to them. Betraying Robb is one thing, but slaughtering two innocent children, threats or not… Why wouldn’t he have simply taken them hostage? A crippled child of eight and a tiny boy of four were hardly going to lead a revolt. He could have easily packed them off to Pyke to use them as bargaining chips.

Although Theon never struck her as terribly wise. Too cocky and short-tempered for that. Perhaps he had them killed in a fit of rage. Berena feels removed from it all. She desperately wants it to not to be true, to turn out to be some exaggerated mummer’s tale, as unlikely as that seems. Perhaps it’s that she has not seen the bodies, likely never will. She very much doubts Theon had them laid to rest in the crypts with their forefathers. 

But when she focuses on the memory of Bran’s sweet-natured smiles, of him running and playing with Jason, his wolf pup on his heels, and of little Rickon in Robb or Sansa’s arms, freckled face scowling fiercely, the tears do come. When she had composed herself, she says, “I don’t want the girls to hear of it.”

Tyrion frowns. “You won’t tell them?”

“What good would it do?” Berena shakes her head. “To crush their remaining hope? To tell them that they have only one brother remaining to them? It does not change their circumstances here, and with the battle so close…” She can smell the smoke from here, even as high up as they are in the Tower of the Hand.

“They will find out eventually,” he says. “You cannot shelter them forever, Berena.”

“And you cannot blame me for trying,” she snaps. “Gods, Tyrion- they have nothing to look forward to as it is.” She hesitates. “After the battle. At least until then.”

Tyrion says nothing, but she can read his gaze well enough. If there is an ‘after the battle’. 

Stannis may very well overrun the city, and if he does… The man is not renowned for his mercy. Neither is he renowned for his cruelty, but while Berena does not think he would have Sansa and Arya harmed, anyone who bears the surname Lannister, Stark looks or not… And that is with the hope that they wouldn’t already be dead, anyways. Soldiers in the midst of battlelust are not known for sparing women and children, highborn or not.

But she cannot dwell on it. She cannot pick up a sword and go riding into battle, so she cannot dwell in it. She has to believe that after all this grief, in this one storm, they will be spared. That the old gods will somehow intercede. That a path will become clear, some middle ground, some way to navigate both Lannister and Baratheon. If Stannis does take the Red Keep, she will throw herself on his mercy, declare Cassana the trueborn queen and him her lord regent, and pray that she is convincing enough to stay his hand.

Yet there are whispers that Stannis now burns godswoods wherever he goes, by the command of some Red Woman, a sorceress by his side. She can despite various branches of the Lannister family tree as much as she likes, but Tywin Lannister never did toss a torch into a godswood. No, she reminds herself then, but he did have frail Princess Elia and two infant children murdered by the monster that is Gregor Clegane, and lives are more precious than trees.

In the end she wipes away her tears and does not breathe a word of Winterfell to her nieces or Gerold, who has been practicing day and night with his cousin Tyrek, in preparation for the battle. He has a shortsword and a small shield from the armory now, and she knows she cannot command him to stay indoors with the women and children during the battle to come; even Joffrey plans to leave the walls of the Red Keep, and if she cloisters Gerold away his shame will be remembered by many. Assuming they all live to tell the tale. 

She tries to console herself with the thought that he is tall for thirteen, and quick on his feet, even more-so from months of ‘dancing’ with Arya in the godswood, dodging and weaving around her thin blade. Besides, he will be part of the king’s retinue, and for all his talk, Joffrey will never be allowed at the head of the army. He will be kept in relative safety towards the back, likely behind rows and rows of archers. Gods willing, they will not see any real carnage.

And it as not as though she does not have some contingency plans of her own.

But she is still unprepared to be shaken awoke in the early hours of the morning. Berena has always slept with Sansa and Arya in the same bed for months now, and sometimes Gerold has even dragged a mattress into the room and slept on the floor beside them. It was a sole source of comfort in the beginning, and it remains one now, for her to be with them all together. But now she rouses herself in alarm, pushing her hair out of her eyes, to see Sansa white-faced and tearful, scrabbling at the sheets.

Arya sleeps light as a cat and bolts upright in bed herself, reaching for Needle as Berena asked in a hushed voice, “What’s wrong, sweetling?” She knows Sansa often has nightmares, but what is she doing- Berena looks downward as the girl rips back the covers, and sees the bright red stain on the white sheets. Oh.

“What is that?” Arya finches back impulsively up against the headboard, nose wrinkled. “Why is there blood?”

“You know why,” Sansa hisses frantically, and turns desperate blue eyes on Berena. “I’ve flowered, I- I can have children now, they’ll make me,” she babbles, grabbing Berena’s arm, nails digging in crescent marks, “Aunt Beri, you know they will, they’ll make me marry him and have his babies, I don’t want to, please, don’t let them know-,”

“Breathe,” says Berena, mind racing. “Get up and breathe, Sansa. It’s alright. It’s going to be alright.”

Arya has already clambered out of the bed, looking around the room. “We could burn the sheets,” she suggests, but Berena shakes her head. “It would take too long, and the maids would notice.” She stands up herself and crosses the room swiftly to her wardrobe. “Sansa, go into the privy. There should be a basin of water from last night. Clean yourself up, and I’ll give you some rags in a moment to wear.”

She pulls out of her own gilded hunting knife, the rubies glittering in the morning light creeping in through the smoky air outside. The smell is enough to set anyone coughing. “Arya, go wake Ger. Tell him to strip the sheets off his bed.” She rips off the sheet from her own bed, pleased to see that it hasn’t yet stained through to the mattress. Gerold comes in with a bundle of his own sheets a few minutes later, staring in confusion at his mother methodically cutting the blood stain out of her sheet.

“What-,”

“Don’t ask questions,” Berena grimaces. “Take this sheet and put it on your bed.”

“But-,”

“Now, Gerold. The maids will notice the tear, but they won’t ask questions, so long as you don’t act strangely.”

“But Mother-,” 

“Just do it,” Arya snaps, giving him a little shove, and Gerold reluctantly takes the pro-offered sheet, wincing.

Berena knows there is still a chance of Cersei eventually piecing it together, but it is better than nothing. She sends Gerold and Arya ahead to supper with Corinne and Elara, and sits by Sansa on the remade bed. “Is your stomach cramping badly?”

“A little,” she admits, resting her head on Berena’s shoulder. 

“It’s alright. You’ll be thirteen in several months; it’s to be expected.” Berena still remembers her own flowering; despite knowing what it was, she panicked and burst into tears, until Lyanna had come to her aid, jesting and prodding her out of her upset. 

“Women are much fiercer than men,” Lya had said with a bit of a wolfish, knowing smirk, “why, we bleed more in our lives than any warrior.” Berena had giggled at that, and felt as though she’d finally caught up with her sister, that they were both women now, united against the world. And then only three months later Lyanna was gone.

“I don’t want to be flowered,” Sansa says quaveringly. “It’s not fair- some girls don’t flower until they’re fifteen! When the queen finds out-,” she trails off, and turns terrified eyes on Berena. “You know she’ll make me marry him, Joffrey said so, he said I have to give him heirs-,”

“The queen doesn’t know, and neither does he,” Berena says firmly, “and we’ll keep it from them as long as we can. They have much greater things to worry about than your flowering right now. Stannis’ men are nearly at the city gates.” The thought is sobering enough.

“I hope Lord Stannis wins,” Sansa whispers.

“Pray for safety, no matter what the outcome is,” Berena squeezes her shoulder. 

Sansa stills. “Yesterday I prayed that Joffrey would die in the battle. I prayed to the old gods, not the Seven. It’s a sin to pray for someone’s death.” She hesitates, and then continues hurriedly, “Does that make me a terrible person, Aunt?”

“No,” Berena says immediately, “no, of course not. Your prayers are your own, sweetling. You should never be ashamed of what goes between you and the gods. Besides,” she tucks her chin against the girl’s soft hair. “The old gods don’t consider it a sin. They offer blood for blood.”

Sansa tenses, but says nothing. Berena wants to tell her that she has prayed for death many times, that she prayed that Robert would slay Rhaegar at the ford, that she prayed that Aerys would burn and burn until his skin turned black and flaked over after what was done to Father and Brandon. That she when she does pray now, she prays for Joffrey to meet an end as cruel as him and for Cersei to topple from the highest tower on a howling northern wind. But some things she still cannot say aloud, for fear that they cannot be taken back, so she holds her tongue. She should be praying for Jaime’s death, after all, and she loathes the part of her that wakes up every morning and longs to see him in bed beside her, even so she could scratch his handsome face to ribbons.

Four days later, both the storm and the siege begin.


	36. Chapter 36

Berena sees Gerold off with a kiss, the same kiss she’d seen her father off with, in that brief time she had with him before he rode for King’s Landing with his men. He never returned, but Gerold will, because he will be by Joffrey, and Joffrey will linger behind stronger men with his crossbow. “Do not leave the king’s side,” she hisses in his ear, after pressing her lips to his brow. Joffrey is making Sansa kiss his blade, to her thinly veiled revulsion.

“I mean to fight, Mother,” Gerold says, a hand on his sword hilt. She wants to laugh and shake him silly. He is a child of thirteen. The worst he has ever seen is a rough sparring here or there against Caleb Marbrand or his cousin Tyrek. He is not without talent; he is Jaime’s son, after all, but then again, so is Joffrey. And she would never place her gold on the king in any sort of close combat. 

“Of course you do,” soothes Berena, who knows she cannot frighten or unnerve him now, not when he is about to ride off into battle. He needs that youthful confidence to survive, ill-reasoned thought it may be. “And you will win, Ger. The gods go with you.” Her son prayed in the godswood this morning, likely to appease her, but it made her feel slightly better all the same. They will protect him. They must. He is still a wolf.

She locks eyes briefly with Tyrion, as Alysanne steps away from her husband, a hand over her mouth. “Be safe,” Berena says, and she does mean it. She cannot afford to lose anyone else. Then the last of the men are gone, leaving only the guards high on the walls, and she and Alysanne and Sansa make their way back to Maegor’s Holdfast, where all the ladies and few children and old men of the court have retreated. Even if Stannis’ army breaks through the outer walls, they will still have to get past the moat. 

Berena dislikes the Queen’s Ballroom immensely, and not just because of Cersei’s cloying velvet decorations, muffling much of the sounds from outside and all the remaining daylight. She would rather hear what is happening than sit here like a babe in a nursery, blind and deaf. The room is packed with tearful women, some in prayer, some in tense silence, and through it all, the falsely joyful music from the gallery above. She finds Arya in the crowd, playing in a corner with two young boys, and after a moment’s debate leaves her there.

She takes her seat on the dais, and finds Genna already there, completely straight-faced but more noticeably aggravated than Berena has ever seen her. The looming presence of Ilyn Payne is not helping matters; Berena does little to disguise the look of pure loathing she directs at him; he stares impassively back at her. 

No sooner have they taken their seats than Cersei’s entrance is announced, and Berena is surprised to see that the queen is wearing her hair down for once, dressed in flowing white like the Maiden herself. Cassana trails after her in pale gold, worrying at her long sleeves. This is likely one of Cersei’s worst nightmares, Berena reflects, to have to sit through a siege alongside Jaime’s wife, Tyrion’s wife, her interfering aunt, and Joffrey’s future queen. 

Nevertheless, she seems to be putting on a mask of apathy, although from the flush in her cheeks Berena suspects she has already been drinking. It’s no wonder her tolerance is so high. She looks around the table after having taken her seat and then says archly, “How wonderful, for us all to be together like this.” Her meaning is lost on no one.

“Why is Ser Ilyn here?” Sansa bursts out with after a minute, wherein the only sound has been the scraping of spoons against bowls.

“To guard us,” Berena says quickly, before Cersei can give some pointedly malicious answer specifically designed to make Sansa cry. It appears to be one of her chief interests while drunk, after all.

“Yes,” Cersei smiles thinly, green eyes glinting, “to guard us, sweetling. When the axes smash down those doors, you may be glad of him.”

Cassana flinches at that, and Genna says smoothly, “Let us talk of sweeter things, shall we? No need to frighten the children.”

“They are hardly children anymore,” Cersei retorts, but allows the conversation to be redirected to idle chatter. She says little, to Berena’s relief, but only continues to drink. Berena divides her time between making sure Sansa and Cassana are both eating and not simply picking at their meals, and checking on Arya, ostensibly to ensure she has not disappeared into some crevice or up into the rafters.

The feast continues on, and it is near four hours later, the sun long since gone down, and the music from the galleries faint and strangled. The queen is more and more flushed. At one point, Genna sends Cassana off to bed. Alysanne looks askance at her, but she says in a hushed voice, “Perhaps it is best that the queen and the king’s heir not all be found in the same place.”

Berena can derive enough meaning from that. The battle is not going well. One of the Kettlebacks- she can never keep them straight- is murmuring to the queen and then Cersei orders Joffrey brought back inside, which tells Berena all she needs to know. The news spreads like wildfire through the room, and more and more women leave for the sept, Genna and Alysanne among them. Cersei seems almost relieved to see them go.

This leaves Berena and Sansa with Cersei. Sansa is close to tears, and Berena wraps an arm around her silently. “You’ll want to practice those tears,” Cersei mutters, “you’ll need them for King Stannis.”

“The battle is not yet lost, Your Grace-,” Berena begins stiffly, but Cersei raises her hand.

“Enough,” she sneers, “do not pretend at courtesy with me, not now. We all know what you are thinking. You’ve been praying for our defeat in that godswood for months now, both of you, and the little urchin-,” Cersei pauses, narrowing her eyes, “Where is she?”

“Playing, Your Grace,” Berena says.

“Playing?” Cersei scoffs. “Is the girl that dense? She had best be playing at tears, like her sister here. Do you think Stannis will spare you Starks, and offer you every kindness, while I rot on the walls with my son and daughter?”

“We’re praying for Joffrey,” Sansa insists weakly, and Cersei laughs. “Your aunt says no such thing, does she?”

“I pray for peace,” Berena grinds out, and moves to stand, but Cersei thrusts a goblet at her. “You’ve barely touched your wine all night, good-sister. Drink.”

Berena takes it from her, staring.

“Your queen commands you,” Cersei adds, and Berena lifts the cup to her lips and downs it all once, before slamming it back down on the table. The queen appears momentarily surprised at her gall. “You drink like a pig at a troth,” she finally settles on, lips pursed.

“If it pleases Your Grace,” Berena says, and stands, head momentarily rushing from the wine. “I would take my nieces-,”

“You will take them nowhere,” Cersei coldly cuts in. “Sit down, you fool. Where do you think you will be safe? Your precious godswood? They will burn it to the ground, with you in it.” She glances back at the the shadows behind the dais, and then leans in as if confiding a secret to Berena. 

“We are both women grown, not children, as you say, so I will share with you why Ser Ilyn is really here, Berena. He’s here for us. For me and Cassana and you and Ned Stark’s daughters. I will not suffer the judgment of Stannis Baratheon. He will not take any of us alive.”

“You would not have your own daughter killed for the sake of your pride,” Berena says, although a chill runs down her spine. “That is madness.”

“This is war,” Cersei bares her teeth in a lioness’ savage smile. “I do not intend to die on my knees begging for mercy like your brother.”

Berena sinks back in her seat a little, resisting the urge to spring to her feet, grab Sansa by the arm, and run from the room. She just needs to wait. She can wait a little while longer. 

And she only needs wait another two hours; then comes Lancel Lannister, grievously wounded and telling the queen the battle is lost. Berena listens closely until he mentions Tyrion likely dead and the Hound missing, and then she is on her feet. Cersei does not move to stop her or order her back as she pulls Sansa up from her chair and down the steps of the dais. 

“Where are we going?” Sansa asks fearfully as Berena moves through the frantic crowd of petrified women and wailing children. Berena doesn’t answer her right away, but says only, “I am going to fetch your sister. You should go ahead to our rooms, and lock the door. I’ll not be long after you.”

“No!” To her shock, Sansa wrenches her arm away, and shakes her head. “The queen is leaving! Ser Lancel is injured- we can’t just leave everyone here like this, they’re frightened!”

“Sansa,” Berena snaps, “we are all frightened, and many more are wounded. We cannot stay to-,”

“Well, I am,” Sansa insists, and dashes back to Lancel’ side, who is bleeding onto the dais’ steps. Berena watches in mute shock as she calls for a maester and then stands up, shoulders squared, and calls into the crowd, “Don’t be afraid.” To Berena’s further shock, they appear to be listening, the crying and screaming quieting as her niece boldly reassures them that they are safe in the holdfast, that there is still hope.

Where did the terrified child go, and who is the confident young woman who has replaced her? Berena has always seen Lyanna in willful Arya, but now- Sansa stands tall, expression firm, every inch a queen. Berena is not sure whether to be proud or unnerved. Either way, she cannot simply stand here gaping. She turns on her heel and dodges around two fleeing serving girls, colliding with Arya, who is approaching the front.

“Come with me.”

“Why?” Arya demands. “The battle’s lost, it doesn’t matter-,” but she allows herself to be pulled from the ballroom and down the corridor, up a flight of stairs. “What’s going on, Aunt Rena?”

They go up another flight until they reach their rooms, and Berena finally slows, taking Arya by the arms. Her niece struggles in her grasp, face pale and alarmed in the flickering torchlight. “Why did you leave Sansa there?” But Berena is busy ushering her into their rooms, and then rummaging under the bed. “Sit down.”

Arya does so, still frowning, and then jumps back when she sees the knife in Berena’s hand. “What are you doing?”

“I need to cut your hair,” Berena says, and has chopped through most of it with one hard slash before Arya can react. The girl gasps in shock and recoils, but Berena grabs her by the shoulder and holds her still like a squirming dog before she hacks through the rest, leaving a mess of locks that fall to Arya’s ears. Her niece stares at her in shock, shoulders heaving up and down.

“You are leaving,” Berena says, “tonight. I’ve made arrangements. You will go as a boy. No one will pay you a moment’s notice. I have old clothes of Gerold’s for you to wear. Your name is Arry and you are fleeing the city with your father, and that is what you will say all the way to Riverrun.”

“What?” Arya gapes. “I can’t- I can’t leave, what about Sansa-,”

“I will protect Sansa,” Berena says, although she feels like the lowest of the low for saying it. “You have to go. This is your only chance. My only chance to get one of you out of the city. You’re young enough to pass for a boy. She isn’t, and she is much more recognizable. If I could smuggle you both out, I would. Please, Arya. I need to get you back to your mother and brother.”

“I can’t run away and leave Sansa,” Arya protests. “That’s not- I’m not going without her! Without you!” 

“Yes, you are,” Berena says firmly. “You must. I am your aunt and I am telling you. You will go. The arrangements have been made- I knew I was going to get you out if the battle was lost, and it is.”

“I’m not going-,” Arya shakes her head fiercely, and then a towering shadow steps into the room behind them.

“You are,” Sandor Clegane rasps. Berena can smell the wine on him; he reeks of it and blood, but he is not so drunk to be of no use to her. And he already has his gold. As a sign of her trust, she paid in advance, knowing she wouldn’t get it back if the Lannisters crushed Stannis. Knowing he might betray her to Cersei at any moment. But it would be both their heads for that, and she would be sure to drag him down with her. And he hasn’t betrayed her.

Not yet, at least.

“I’m not going with him!” Arya shrieks, and practically vaults over the bed to come back up with Needle. “I’m not, he’s one of Joffrey’s-,”

“I’m whoever pays me’s, and for now, that’s your aunt,” Clegane snarls. “Get dressed. We don’t have all night.” He regards Berena balefully. “You’re sure about this?”

“I’ll be surer the sooner you leave,” Berena says, head throbbing. “You gave me your word you would see her safely to her brother and mother.”

“And if I decide she’s worth more than what you paid?”

“Then they will happily pay you for her safe return,” Berena snaps. “But for the time being, get her out of this city.” This is madness. Of course it is. No sane woman would entrust a vulnerable young girl to the Hound. But that is exactly what she means to do. She’s watched him for years now, seen the look in his eyes when Joffrey heaps derision and abuse upon Sansa. He will not harm Arya. 

But no one will suspect Berena of handing her niece over to him. Why would she? No gentle woman would do such a thing, and she is well-known for her soft heart around court. Besides, Arya’s penchant for disappearing is well-established. Who is to say she did not run off during the thick of things, along with all the servants fleeing the holdfast before the bridge was drawn? Cersei cannot say; she was drunk. Genna and Alysanne were in the sept. And what gentle woman would smuggle one niece out but not another? And especially not the one betrothed to a monster?

No, even if there is suspicion that she knows more about where Arya has gone, they will never be able to prove it, and more importantly, even if Tyrion is dead, Genna would never believe it. Especially not since Berena means to work herself up into hysterics by the time Arya and Clegane are gone, and be seen desperately searching for her niece throughout Maegor’s Holdfast. Who could play-act at such a thing? Certainly not earnest, soft Berena Stark.

Fortunately, she has long since ceased to be soft. Now it is only a question of if she will ever be able to forgive herself for this.


	37. Chapter 37

Berena is still half-wondering if this is all some elongated dream when she finds herself seated before Tywin Lannister. The battle seemed to turn in the matter of a precious hour or two, and even before dawn Stannis’ forces had been pushed back. A last minute alliance with the Tyrells is perhaps not shocking, but that they were still able to pull off a victory is. She supposes they have Garlan and Loras Tyrell to thank for that. Gods know Mace Tyrell hasn’t lifted a sword in years, from the looks of him. 

But she doesn’t regret sending Arya with the Hound. After what seemed like months of paralysis she had her chance, potentially her only chance for years to come, and she took it. Clegane will return Arya to Catelyn and Robb, or die trying. Berena believes that. She has to. She has to believe she named a good price for his loyalty, and that her leap of faith will be repaid. She still has not told Sansa. She may never tell Gerold. They had to believe she was truly missing for it to seem real.

Arya may hate her for it, they may all hate her for it, but she got one of Ned’s girls out of this damned city, and that has to mean something. It has to. It is autumn now, although you would not believe it from the heat and stench of King’s Landing, and the maesters say it will be a short season. When winter comes, and the Blackwater freezes over, and the Kingsroad is blanketed with feet of snow, no one will enter or leave the city for months, if not years. Berena is determined that she will not be here when the snows come. She may not be in the North, but at least she will not be in this hellhole.

“There is still no sign of the girl,” Tywin says, and Berena rouses from her dazed thoughts and remembers to look distraught. It has barely been a fortnight since the battle ended. “If she is dead, we may never find her body.”

She bows her head in a suitable show of grief. “I will never forgive myself for losing sight of her that night, my lord. I- she is like a daughter to me, they both are.”

“You have your own children to attend to,” Tywin steeples his fingers and stares at her intently. Sometimes Berena really does wonder what Jaime inherited from his father. Or Cersei, for that matter. Everything about the man is methodical, while her husband and the queen are anything but. “I was informed of Myriam’s betrothal.” He scowls briefly. “It never should have been arranged without my consent, but I will make no moves to break it now. We cannot afford any distractions from Dorne.”

I am her mother, Berena wants to scream, yet no one asked for my consent on the matter, but instead she simply nods placidly. “As you say, my lord. I pray my daughter is treated kindly there.”

“She is a lady of House Lannister,” Tywin says grimly. “Any offense to her will be taken as a slight on our honor.”

What honor, Berena thinks, but she does not look away. “My lord,” she begins hesitantly instead, “have you word of Jaime?”

He stiffens, and then utters, “He will be returned to us in time, Lady Berena.” She does not dare press for further information on the subject. His son’s capture is clearly a source of shame, ro at least embarrassment for him. Besides, Jaime ought to be the least of her concerns at the moment.

“As for Gerold,” Tywin continues as if Jaime were never mentioned at all, “it is fortunate that you did bring him to court,” his green eyes narrow, “although you will not leave the Rock without my express permission again.”

“Yes, my lord,” Berena murmurs, although her pulse quickens at the mention of Gerold. He came out of the battle with nary a scratch, much like Joffrey. But she knows he saw men die, and while he may not have done the killing himself, that is no easy thing to bear. Seeing a hanging or beheading is one thing. Watching men cut each other down in the heat of battle, screaming and crying senselessly, is entirely another.

“Joffrey’s betrothal to Sansa has been dissolved,” Tywin stands, and Berena almost stands as well, nearly excited, if that is the word for it. Finally. Nothing can keep her from taking Sansa away from here now.

“He will marry Margaery Tyrell instead, and Cassana has been betrothed to their heir, Willas.” Tywin’s expression twitches slightly, a barely restrained frown. Willas, Berena recalls, is the crippled one, although he is Mace Tyrell’s eldest. A leg badly hurt in some jousting accident years ago. Garlan Tyrell is at least twenty, so Willas is surely a man grown himself, crippled or not. Cassana is over a decade his junior. Berena hopes they will not marry for some time.

“And Sansa-,” she begins, barely able to disguise her relief-

“Sansa will wed Gerold. Soon,” Tywin adds pointedly, seeing the look on her face. “The Stark boys are dead. Their first son will rule the West. Their second may very well rule the North.” 

Berena does not know what to say. She is hardly going to seriously protest this. It may not be ideal, but she would sooner see Sansa wed to her own first cousin than to any other Lannister or Tyrell. Gerold is- well, he is rapidly leaving childhood behind, if he has not already, and Berena will have to trust that she has raised him right at some point. At the very least, they know one another, have shared smiles and tears together. They will not be strangers or hated enemies. It may very well be a better marriage than her own.

But they are still both children, at least to her. “Sansa is yet unflowered-,”

“The girl is nearly thirteen, she will be soon enough,” Tywin cuts her off dismissively. “Their wedding will take place before the end of the year. Arrangements are already being made for the king’s. The Marbrand, Estren, and Plumm girls will also have Reacher marriages. There will be no questioning of this alliance. House Lannister and House Tyrell are bound together now.”

Sensing the conversation is over, Berena slowly stands as well. “Thank you, my lord.”

“My condolences,” he is already examining some new letters, “for your losses, Lady Berena. But I would remind you where your loyalties lie. You may love Sansa Stark like a daughter, and you may mourn her sister and brothers. But Robb Stark still stands in open defiance of the Iron Throne, of his rightful king. He may surrender and give up his rebel crown at any time, and still see our mercy.”

“Robb will never surrender,” Berena says, plainly. They both know it to be true.

“He will not,” Tywin agrees, and she does not like the look that crosses over his face. “You did not just vow to obey my son. You vowed to obey House Lannister from the moment our cloak sat on your shoulders. Do not lose sight of that.”

Berena made no such vows, for her wedding was held under a heart tree, not in a sept. But she simply nods and curtsies to her good-father, who has always inspired fear and loathing in near equal measures in her. True, she had more cause to hate Jaime than his father. Tywin was not responsible for the mere existence of Joffrey, and had he been present, he certainly would not have permitted Ned’s execution. But he was responsible for Jaime and Cersei themselves. 

Perhaps it was soft-hearted and short-sighted of her, but she could not, or refused to believe that a loving mother and father could create such a thing. Even if the inclinations, the temptations were always there, she very much doubted Tywin’s overwhelming pride and cold nature had helped matters. If anything, it had only made his children worse, had heightened their insecurities, their spitefulness. Did Jaime believe his father loved him? She doubted it. 

Her own father had been cold and distant, yes. But she had never doubted his love for her, his pride in her as his child, not merely an extension of himself. Rickard Stark had not been a kind man or a gentle man. He was nothing like Ned was with his children. But he had been a good man, who would have done anything for his sons and daughters. And she needed to convince herself that her children would not grow up as their father and aunt and uncle had. That they knew she loved them, in spite of all her flaws, that they knew Jaime loved them, in spite of all his flaws.

But she has been lying to them for years. She will lie to them until the day she dies. What sort of mother keeps such things from her children? But what sort of mother would she be if she hadn’t? She thinks of Gerold, soon to be wed at the tender age of thirteen, and Myriam, at the mercy of a foreign court, and Jason and Lorelei, all alone. Just a little while longer. After Gerold and Sansa are wed, Tywin will likely send them all back to the Rock. At least then she will have two of her children with her. She will find a way to see Myriam. She will visit Jason. She will try to fix things as best she can. It’s not too late. It can’t be too late. They are still so young. They have years and years of innocent childhood left to them. She will be there for them. She hasn’t left them behind forever.

But of course, she used to think the same thing of Gerold and Sansa. If she does not tell them herself, someone else will. For a split second she wishes Jaime were here. He at least was a thirteen year old boy, once upon a time. Likely far less sheltered than his own son, and likely already in bed with his sister, but he was still a boy. Boys need their fathers. Gerold has only her, Tyrion, who is still unconscious from his injuries, and Tywin himself. She shudders to think of what sort of ‘advice’ his grandsire might offer him.

Sansa has been invited to spend time with the ladies of the new Tyrell court. Berena does not trust Olenna, Alerie, or Margaery Tyrell, but she can hardly hide from them. Margaery will be queen by the new year. Gods willing, she is ready for it. Queen is one thing. Joffrey’s queen is entirely another. She cannot imagine him suddenly turning into a docile little prince just because of a new pretty face. Margaery is charming and courteous, beloved by her brothers, the apple of her mother’s eye. So was Sansa.

In the godswood, there is a slight shift in the air. Almost a chill, but not quite. It certainly feels more like autumn than in the still-blooming gardens. Gerold has been very quiet since the battle and Arya’s ‘disappearance’, but that is to be expected. His life has been nothing but one upheaval after another over the past year. She should not have brought him to court, but it was that or the Riverlands, and the outcome would have been the same either way. 

“Are you feeling alright, Mother?” he asks without looking at her, staring at the scattered leaves on the ground.

“As well as can be expected,” she says, and puts a tentative hand on his shoulder. He stiffens. “Look at me, Ger.”

“It’s Father, isn’t it,” he grinds out, “is he-,”

“Your father is fine,” Berena interrupts him, then flushes. “He- he will be fine, Gerold. Your grandfather will get him back. You will see him again, I promise.”

“Don’t promise that,” he snaps. “You always promise, Mother, and it never does any good.”

She recoils slightly, stung, and although she should reprimand him, she only stands there, mouth open. Gerold doesn’t apologize, but he does have the grace to redden and avoid her gaze. “Joffrey’s going to marry the Tyrell girl, isn’t he?” he asks in a low voice.

“He is,” Berena says, holding herself stiffly. “His betrothal to Sansa has been dissolved.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Gerold glances up at her, grey eyes darkened like storm clouds. “He’ll have Margaery beaten just like her, eventually. He likes it.” His lip curls slightly. “You should hear the things he says when-,”

“You are marrying Sansa,” Berena burts out, scowling. “Do you hear me, Gerold? You. Your grandfather hopes to make a Northern claim through your children, someday.” Someday soon, Tywin likely thinks. But she cannot think about that right now. Gerold can’t be a father. He’s a child himself. And she is certainly not going to be a grandmother at the tender age of thirty one.

“I can’t marry Sansa,” Gerold says immediately, and she hears the shock in his voice. “I- I’m not even knighted, I haven’t proven myself yet-,”

“Do you really think he cares about a knighthood?” Berena retorts. “Do you think I do? Proven yourself! You are thirteen! You are a little boy! The only thing you’ve proven-,” she cuts herself off before she says something they both regret. She has to try. She cannot resent her own son. But it is hard, because she sees so much of Ned, that it hurts sometimes, to talk with him.

For the first time since he was very small, her son begins to truly panic. “I- I haven’t even-,” he goes scarlet and presses his lips together. Of course he hasn’t. She suspects he has had kisses and infatuated glances and even lustful stares, but she knows her son well enough. He would not have clambered into bed with the first serving girl to throw a shy, blushing look his way. That Lannister pride is good for something, after all.

Berena wavers, and then sinks down beside him, gathering him in her arms as if he were a child of five or six again. “I know, sweetling. I know. And your grandfather will expect you to.” She pauses. “But I will tell you right now that what happens in a marriage is no one’s right to decide but the husband and wife. And regardless of anything else, I know you love Sansa as your own kin. I know you would never hurt her.”

“She will hate me,” he whispers. “Mother, she will. She will always hate me, after this. It doesn’t matter if we- if we don’t- she doesn’t want to be a Lannister, she will never forgive me for making her one.”

Berena hesitates, and then pushes the doubt aside. He is old enough to hear the truth. “Gerold,” she says quietly. “I hated your father when I wed him. I wanted nothing to do with him, or House Lannister, or the westerlands. I cried myself to sleep on our wedding night. We had as little choice in the marriage as you and Sansa do.”

He stares at her as if she is telling him a fantastical story. “But- but-,” he stammers then, and she sees what is almost fear on his face, “but you and Father- he- he forced you?”

“No,” Berena says quickly, grabbing him by the shoulders. “No, he- he would never do such a thing. Your father and I had a terrible beginning, yes. He could be cruel. So could I. We’ve said many things we came to regret. But he has never struck me, and he has never forced me to do anything I did not desire. And we… we were able to move on. To let go of some of the past. That is important in any marriage. You must understand. Much can be forgiven, Gerold. But very little can ever be forgotten, especially between a husband and wife.”

She stares at him for a few moments, and then he relaxes some and gives a jerky nod. “I understand, Mother.”

“I pray you do.” If he does not, it will be a miserable twenty, thirty, forty years for the both of them. She knows well enough that one does not have to be brutalized to want to tear their hair out and scream. And she will not see a tragedy in motion play out before her with a boy and a girl she loves dearly as the actors.


	38. Chapter 38

Berena decides fairly quickly that if she is going to see her son married to her niece, she is going to ensure that it is a spectacle not soon forgotten. After all, it’s not so often one sees their eldest child wed at the tender age of thirteen, and Gerold is the future lord of Casterly Rock. Now that Tywin has been instated as Hand and has Joffrey firmly under control, she sees no need to bow her head meekly and pretend at humility for the sake of shielding the children.

She has more leeway now, so to speak, and she intends to make full use of. Gerold and Sansa must wed before the end of the year? So be it. They have three months to plan, and if their wedding is only a few weeks before the king’s, then why not? All the more feasting and festivities for the court. It will be a veritable carnival. She will not see them rushed down the aisle as if there were a babe on the way. This is not some common marriage. Her son is no minor lordling, nor is Sansa some little lady. 

Perhaps this is a taste of how Cersei feels all the time, regarding her son and daughter. Berena sits almost smugly in the gardens with Sansa and her ladies and Cassana and Margaery Tyrell and her cousins, and makes it perfectly clear that while Margaery may be the future queen, she is far from the only jewel of this court. Every time the girl tries for a play at pity, Berena cuts her off and inquires eagerly about Margaery’s own impending nuptials.

Yes, it is spiteful and petty of her, but she rather enjoys it after months of unending stress and fear. Let Margaery Tyrell and her kin squirm a little trying to find compliments to bestow on a rabid little beast like Joffrey. It is the least they can do, surely. And if it makes Sansa sit a little taller, then all the better. She told Berena what she wanted to hear; that she was overjoyed to marry Gerold, that she was so grateful and relieved. The extent to which that is true is questionable, but Berena can still try to make the whole thing as painless as possible.

“Is that your maiden cloak?” Margaery inquires politely one sunny afternoon, pausing with her gaggle of ladies before the bowed heads of Berena, Sansa, Cassana, and Elara, bent over the pale grey of the cloak. Berena is bringing one of the outline of the snow white dire wolf to life. “Yes,” she says brightly without looking up, “and we were just thinking of pearls for the eyes and teeth? Would that not look lovely?”

“A direwolf made of pearls!” one of the lesser Tyrells giggles, then quiets at a quick glance of disapproval from Margaery, who smiles all the more determinedly. “Quite lovely, Lady Berena.” She traces the edge of the cloak with one pale finger. “Sansa, you will be such a pretty bride, everyone says so. You must let my mother pick out flowers for your hair; she has such a knack for it.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Sansa replies demurely. “But my aunt is having a headpiece made for me.”

“Goldenrod and lilies,” Elara adds. “It will look lovely with her hair.”

Margaery pouts briefly, then laughs, high and clear. Berena wonders at her; the girl is clearly quite clever, so she cannot be blind to the reality of Joffrey and Cersei. Perhaps she thinks to outmaneuver both of them. But she will have Tywin to contend with now as well, and that will be like going up against a stone wall. “I shall have to save all my sisterly advice for the princess then. We are both only used to brothers!”

At the mention of sisters Sansa looks away, stilling, and Berena glances at quiet Cassana, whose expression has soured into one quite like her mother’s. “That will not be for a very long time, my mother says,” the girl insists stiffly.

Margaery’s smile wavers for an instant, and then she shakes her head a little. “Of course! But one can never start planning too early. You’ll be flowered before you know it.” With that, she disappears into the hedgerows, and Berena and Elara exchange glances. Sansa sighs under her breath a little, and Cassana says sharply, “I don’t like her.”

“You have too much Baratheon in you to stomach a Tyrell,” Berena replies only half in jest. It may really be that she has too much Cersei in her, but perhaps that’s unfair. It’s only natural that Cassana be disinclined to trust her. What girl of ten and one wants to marry a crippled man of three and twenty? “Truth be told, you may intimidate her- you are a princess, Cassana, and one day you will be her good-sister.”

“And when she marries Joffrey, she’ll be queen. That’s above me,” Cassana mutters, jabbing her needle through the cloth in a way that reminds Berena distinctly of Arya.

“But when you are of age you will be lady of Highgarden, and that’s ever so much nicer than King’s Landing,” Sansa says swiftly, wincing a little at Cassana’s handiwork. “Isn’t it? They say Willas loves to read and hawk and ride still, even with his bad leg. I’m sure you’ll love it there.” There is more than a little envy in her voice, and Berena’s stomach twists a bit.

“You will come to like Casterly Rock,” she tells her. “Just as I did. It is very different from anywhere else you have ever been, but it is beautiful. Even in the winter; you can see for miles from the tallest towers, and the gardens are small but lovely.”

She does not say that she had never wished for it either, that she had just wanted Winterfell, or a keep much like it, surrounded by snowy mountains and whispering pines. Instead she focuses on the maiden cloak. It will be beautiful, just as Lyanna’s was going to be. Berena ended up wearing hers, as her sister never used it. Lyanna could hardly be made to sit still long enough to do most of the sewing. She was like Arya; she loathed needlework. Singing and dancing she quite enjoyed. Lyanna loved songs as much as Sansa does. Did. 

Berena can still see her crying over Rhaegar’s, in a dimly lit feasting hall at Harrenhal, and snapping at her when she teased her over it. It had been a curiosity, proud Lyanna breaking down in maidenly tears. Lyanna never cried. Berena supposes she cried in that tower, eventually. When she realized she was no bird and could not flit out the window to wing north, to see Father and Brandon again. When she realized her prince was not coming back. Her sister died almost thinking she’d been abandoned, forgotten and cast aside by anyone who’d ever claimed to love her. Berena hopes Ned assured her, at the end. She hopes he held her and comforted her. She was just a child, really. Barely sixteen and in a cage.

Sansa’s wedding gown is truly beautiful. Her dagged sleeves are trimmed with Myrish lace and nearly touch the floor. The skirt is full and tapers at the top to her narrow waist. Her bodice is full of intricate beading and glimmers with pearls and opals. It looks iridescent in the sunlight. Berena braids her hair in the Northern style once more, and she looks older with it down, framing her heart-shaped face. She sees Catelyn in her then, from her blue eyes to her willowy height to the shape of her nose and chin and brows. 

“Your mother would be proud to see you now,” Berena says. She has heard from Darlessa who overheard from Genna that the Stark forces have retreated east. It makes sense; Robb must reclaim the North if he has any hope of mounting a full-scale assault on the south. There are rumors that he has married a Western girl, but Berena has her doubts about that. It makes little sense; surely Catelyn arranged a marriage for him by now, likely with a Riverland lady.

Sansa’s smile is tight and pinched. “I hope Gerold likes it.”

“Of course he will,” Berena says, squeezing her elbow. “How could he not? He is the luckiest lad in King’s Landing, to marry a beauty like you.” She lowers her voice slightly. “You need not have any fear of your cousin, Sansa. I know you still do not know each other as well as you may have liked, but he is a good boy. He will grow into a good man.” She will see that he does.

“I know,” says Sansa, gaze unreadable. When Berena first met her the girl was an open book. Now she seems to grow more and more stoic by the day. She is not sure whether to be proud of her ability to mask her emotions or uneasy of it. When she and Gerold return to Casterly Rock, she will not have to pretend anymore, Berena thinks. She can be at peace for once.

And how will the girl be at peace, surrounded by lions? something snarls in her head. Berena pushes the thought aside with a shake of her head. Sansa will not be the first wolf to mingle with a pride. If she can survive court, the Rock will seem laughably innocent. Lorelei will love spending time with her, and she will get along well with Joy Hill. 

Near the entire court witnesses the procession into the royal sept. Berena escorts Sansa down the aisle, despite Joffrey’s demands and Tyrion’s offers. The girl has no father nor brother nor even a mother to give her a way, so Berena will do so. Were Jaime here, she would still insist on doing it, just to put Sansa at ease. 

Gerold may not have inherited his father’s blinding good looks, but Berena thinks him handsome in his golden doublet and scarlet cape. His hair has been combed properly and he is not fidgeting or looking around nervously, although he does have the grace to blush crimson when he removes Sansa’s maiden cloak and drapes Lannister red around her shoulders.The applause is thunderous, ringing through the sept, and children scatter rosebuds at their feet as they walk out. They marry at noon, but the feasting will go on into the evening; Berena did not have three separate consultations with the kitchens to let everyone off with a simple dinner and little dancing.

She watches the new couple intently at their high table; Gerold has his grandfather’s proud bearing and Sansa is smiling beatifically, the picture of a overjoyed new bride. Berena knows she likely looked similar on her wedding night, only she was too busy dancing with every man in the hall who was not her bridegroom. Now she sips her wine, content in the knowledge that the queen is at the opposite end of the room, battling it out over Joffrey against Margaery and her grandmother. It is a nice change of pace for Cersei to have a new target for once. Olenna Tyrell makes Berena and her ladies look like a few kittens.

And although she is officially an aged good-mother, she still partakes in the dancing, still pulls a gasping Cassana into a reel and spins in the arms of Mace Tyrell and Loras and Garlan, all who compliment her gracefulness, and a scarred Tyrion, in a foul mood over Tywin sending Alysanne home while he was unconscious for near a week, and she even dances a round with Tywin, who for once has nothing to criticize. In fact, she believes she nearly gets a compliment from him regarding Gerold’s ‘dignified’ demeanor.

Then there are gifts being presented; books and tapestries and heaps of jewelry and silks, and a new sword for her Ger. Berena recognizes the dark sheen of Ice’s Valyrian steel anywhere. This is a remnant of Ned’s massive blade, albeit reduced to a short-sword. Gerold does not hold it aloft and grin as Joffrey might have. Instead he tucks it away, and brushes off calls to name it and anoint the blade. Good. She would rather it stay nameless.

The sun has set when Joffrey stands, slams his hands down on the table, making Margaery jump slightly, and calls for the bedding, smiling sickly and directly at the high table. All the color drains from Sansa’s face, and Berena worries she might faint for a split second. She moves to stand up herself, but Corinne grips her arm and jerks her head in Gerold’s direction.

“There will be no bedding ceremony,” says Gerold, not angrily or hesitantly but firmly. He takes Sansa’s hand in his own. “My wife and I will retire alone.” Sansa glances up at him quickly as if she does not recognize him, but does not pull away. 

“Nonsense,” Joffrey’s lip curls. “It’s tradition. You wouldn’t deny your king, would you?”

Margaery takes his arm tenderly and leans up to whisper to him, but he brushes her off. Joffrey is still staring at Gerold like a dog that has caught sight of a hare. It is a challenge, Berena thinks. He is insecure and threatened by his cousin- his half-brother, really- and he wants to see him humiliated. She looks to Tywin, whose expression is cold. “You are the king, but it is the husband’s right to decide,” he says, and that makes Joffrey go crimson with rage and embarrassment. Is that what this is about? He believes Tywin prefers Gerold over him. It is likely true. The hall has gone queerly silent, aside from the musicians still playing softly.

“I am the king,” he begins anew, voice rising to a child’s shout, “and if I want a bedding-,”

“You’ll have your bedding soon enough, Your Grace. Don’t spoil my son’s fun while you’re at it,” someone cuts in dryly, and Berena freezes, thinking she must have misheard. But she would recognize that voice anywhere. Heads swivel, someone drops a lute, a serving girl squeals loudly in alarm, and the entire hall turns to stare at the man who has just entered. 

Had he not spoken, Berena would not have recognized him with his long hair shorn off and a beard on his face. But now she has heard him, and she gapes at her husband for a few moments before she takes stock of him, all of him, the travel-worn clothes and muddy cloak, the battered boots, the sword at his back… and the absence of his right hand, where his arm ends in a bandaged stump.

Cersei, flushed deeply with wine, moves to stand and faints instead, and the silence dissolves into clamor and running feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Far be it from Jaime to ever miss a good party. (Yes, he has returned roughly three-ish weeks earlier than he does in canon. I know we all missed him dearly).


	39. Chapter 39

Berena fights back a grimace as Maester Frenken removes the wrappings from Jaime’s stump, but it is not as bad as she had feared. She can tell from where she standing that he has managed to avoid infection, and it appears to be healing over. “You will still experience pain from it for months to come,” the maester tells her husband, who looks a little more like the man she remembers now that he has shaven, although his hair, or lack of it, is still disconcerting. “All men who have lost a hand or foot speak of it. Try to avoid straining your left arm to compensate.”

Jaime just looks at him, and Frenken sighs and stands up. “Have it wrapped again in the morning. You should let it breathe for a while. You are lucky to have avoided blood poisoning, my lord.”

“Yes,” says Jaime drolly, “I often reflect on my good fortunes in times such as these. It heartens me.”

Berena shoots him a look as the maester leaves, and then for the first time in a year, they are alone together. Gerold is supposed to be bedding Sansa right now. If she has raised a halfway decent boy-man, he will for once in his life disobey his grandfather’s orders. In the meantime, Cersei has been ushered off by her attendants, the feasting has resumed, and Berena and her husband are alone in her rooms. She doesn't know what to say or do. She has grown so used to his absence that having him here unnerves her. 

Seconds tick by without a word from either of them, only the crackle of the fire in the grate. Finally, Jaime says, still listlessly examining his stump, “Why in the seven hells did you return to court? Was it pure spite, wife? Did you think to-,”

“I thought to save my nieces,” Berena snaps. She does not have to stand her timidly and listen to this. They are far past that point in their marriage. Most of this leads back to him, anyways. What was she thinking coming back here? What was he thinking, riding off to war and getting himself bloody captured? They’re both fools, aye, but there’s no room for throwing stones at this rate. 

“Well, I’m not sure Sansa considers herself rescued,” Jaime retorts. “And the younger one-,”

“Don’t lecture me,” Berena says through gritted teeth. “Not now. You know why I came back. My brother was arrested on charges of treason. His men were slaughtered- a slaughter you began, I might add, when you cut half a dozen of them down in the street and shattered his leg!”

“After his wife kidnapped my brother!”

“She only kidnapped your brother because you saw fit to throw my nephew out a window!”

Jaime stiffens, and Berena glares at him, hackles raised. What did he expect, a loving embrace and an invitation to her bed? They hardly parted on affectionate terms. He may not have killed Ned, but Joffrey is his responsibility. His bastard murdered her kin. How can she ever forget that? How is she supposed to acknowledge that? He doesn’t get to be blameless. 

“You came back to court with my son,” he says in a much more restrained tone, although she can tell he wants to raise his voice from the set of his jaw. “And then proceeded to sit through a siege-,”

“Well, had I been permitted to remove Sansa and Arya from the capitol and take them back to the Rock, I certainly would have,” Berena hisses. “Unfortunately, I was overruled in that regard. Joffrey was a bit busy showing off heads on spikes and having the Kingsguard beat maidens bloody.”

Jaime freezes at that, and looks at her. “What?” he asks in a low, dangerous voice. 

“You heard me,” Berena is oddly proud of her voice for not wavering. “Those anointed knights you Southroners idolize had very few qualms when it came to raising a hand to women and children-,”

He stands up. “They touched you?”

“I’m not a child, you should be more concerned about-,”

“Who,” he cuts her off coldly in that Tywin-voice of his, and while it fails to send chills down her spine the way it once did, she still stops talking, and exhales before answering again.

“Trant and Blount. The former seemed to enjoy it more,” Berena says in a clipped tone. They both sink back into restless silence. Jaime takes a few angry strides around the room, and she sits down by the fire. “Only the once,” she comments after a few moments. “Your aunt was furious. After that, none of them touched me, just the girls.” She feels ill, and she’s not sure why. Recounting it seems almost like a confession. As if for once he is judging her, rather than her judging him. 

“I tried,” she closes her eyes briefly. “I thought I did. I couldn’t remove them from court, so I stayed. I tried to surround them with my ladies. I tried to make them feel like we were a family. I gave Sansa music lessons. I let Arya train with Gerold in the godswood. I took them to pray for their parents every day. I never left any of them alone with Cersei.” In the dark of her eyes closed, she could be talking to Ned. Justifying. Making her excuses. 

Jaime says nothing. She can feel the heat of his look upon her, even without seeing him. “I don’t know,” Berena realizes she sounds old. He may have the first streaks of silver in his hair now, but she feels just as weathered to her own ears. “I don’t know what I should have done. There was no question of the betrothal being broken until the Tyrells made their alliance. Your father told me he wanted Sansa for Gerold instead, and I was happy. I was relieved,” she spits out, and her eyes open again. She blinks roughly in the dimness. “I was relieved to sell my niece off to a kinder master. Anyone- there were few who could have been worse for her than Joffrey, so I was pleased. I am still pleased, I think. At least she knows she’s not chained to a monster.”

“Is Arya dead?” Jaime asks at last, and she cannot read his expression. That much at least has stayed the same. There will always be the unease of not knowing quite where he stands. There will always be the uncertainty. 

Berena looks at him for a long moment, and then shakes her head minutely.

“Your doing,” he mutters; it’s not a question. He sits back down on the edge of the bed, and exhales slowly. “My father will never admit we no longer have her.”

“He may not need to,” she replies. Then again, she doubts Robb will ever make a formal announcement that he has reclaimed one of his sisters, either. All she can do is hope Clegane is as tough a dogged bastard as she’s always suspected.

“So,” says Jaime. He seems to want to say more but falters.

“Who took your hand?” Berena asks at last, and the truth of it (or what she will have to trust is mostly the truth) comes spilling out in drabbles. Catelyn released him after she received word of Bran and Rickon. She sent him south with the Maid of Tarth, whom Berena has heard the odd rumor or two about, a beast of a girl in sapphire armor. And then the Goat. And Harrenhal. And Bolton. And the bear. She can tell when he is censoring things, presumably for her comfort. She listens silently anyways, until he runs out of words.

“I should like to meet Lady Brienne,” Berena settles on, and stands up and approaches him, not hesitantly or haltingly. She’s not frightened and she’s not furious. She’s not gripped with the loathing she felt when she last saw him either. It’s been too long. She hasn’t forgiven him for any of it, and likely he hasn’t forgiven her either. What are they going to? Rail at each other? Threaten one another? Chastise each other like children?

He shouldn’t have done it. She could have done more. Maybe they’re both victims of their own insecurities and pride. Neither of them has exactly conducted themselves like the proper Lord and Lady Lannister, striding into rooms and barking orders and smiling sharply down at their lessers, making deals with a wave of their hands. Neither of them were ever terribly good at seeing the forest for the trees. Selfish, maybe, or small-minded, or too caught up in their own personal turmoil to see the larger picture. 

But now they don’t exactly have much of a choice, do they? All the internal squabbles and resentments, it’s all been brushed aside. Now they are together again and the court is (for the time being) in something once more resembling normalcy. Lord Tywin, here to save the day, and restrain Joffrey from having men thrown into moats and drowned in barrels of wine. The present seems secure, so that leaves… the future. Berena sits down beside him, and their arms brush slightly. 

“You did what you thought was best at the time,” Jaime looks at her now, not smiling but not frowning or scowling either. “It doesn’t matter if you want to go back and change it now, you can’t. Arya and Sansa are both alive. Gerold is alive.”

“Myriam is in Dorne,” she says, more brusquely than she meant it. She doesn’t know if he knows, but she is his daughter too.

“Father informed me,” Jaime takes her hand in his remaining one, not gently or in a reassuring fashion, but in a promise of sorts. He squeezes it. “I will bring her back to you, Berena.”

“Good,” Berena rests her head against his shoulder, not so much because she wants his comfort but because he is there and reassuringly solid. “You can still fight?”

He tenses, but allows, “I will. I don’t need both hands to wield a sword.” He doesn’t shift away from her. He rests his hand on her leg, not in a leering manner but just because she is there. “After Joffrey is wed, we’ll go back to Casterly Rock. You can see Gerold and Sansa settled, and I’ll get a ship to Sunspear.”

“We will both go to Sunspear,” she corrects him under her breath. “What we had before,” she goes on after a pause, “that is over, Jaime.”

“I didn’t come here to order you back into my bed,” he begins defensively, but she almost snorts.

“Not that. Well-,” this is not the time nor the place to be debating that, despite them both sitting on her literal bed. “I mean- this. We’ve been married for fifteen years. I have always done as you wished.”

“Of course, except for staying at Casterly Rock and not returning to court.” She’s glad to see he has not lost his skill at mockery.

“No,” she sighs. “You know what I mean. The- the dancing around things, the hiding things from each other, the- we have been together, we are together, we have children together. It has never served either of us well to withhold things from one other. We can’t go back to ignoring what we don’t want to acknowledge. I can’t do it anymore. We need to be honest with each other. With ourselves.”

He regards her for a little while, and then says, “I never pretended to be honorable, with you. Lady Brienne- gave me some things to consider.” His gaze drifts down to the unbandaged stump, the scarred and puckered skin. “I mean to do rightly by you. And the children. Had I died-,”

“Had you died, I would have mourned you,” she says, perhaps more gently than he has ever deserved. “Hating you wouldn’t have helped me or anyone else. But you are not dead. You are here. With me. Pretend, don’t pretend, I don’t care. All anyone can do is try. And there are people who need us. Innocent people. Gerold. Sansa. Myriam. Cassana. We’ve both made our oaths.”

“I mean to keep them.” They almost kiss. It isn’t anything passionate. It is more of a meeting of faces, their breath in one another’s hair. Her lips ghost along the stubble of his jaw before she pulls back. It didn’t feel romantic or redemptive, it felt like a promise. Not so much to one another but to a common cause. She doesn’t feel anymore hopeful, but she does feel acceptance. That’s what Ned would call it.

“What now?” he asks.

Berena glances out the darkened tower window. “We try to get some sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suffice to say, Jaime has done some soul searching. I apologize for the more subdued tone. The next few chapters are going to be.... eventful, and barring any natural disaster, I am ending this fic before I hit 50 chapters. Hopefully. I finally know what plot point I want to end on, so I thought I should give some forewarning. The fic will *not* leave off in King's Landing, so to who everyone who hates the setting as much as I hate writing the setting, rejoice.


	40. Chapter 40

Berena finally meets the Maid of Tarth three days after the wedding. She is in a remarkably improved mood now that things have begun to settle into some variation of normalcy once more. Jaime has returned and taken a seat on the king’s council. Her son’s marriage remains unconsummated. She knows this because she saw the sheets herself, and because Tywin was in a particularly foul mood when he realized he’d been defied. But as he said himself at the feast, it is the husband’s right to decide, and Gerold has remained stoic.

She is proud of him, and she think Jaime is a well. Now if only he could say it, but Ger’s treatment of his father has been… while not openly hostile, ‘cold’ is certainly the word for it. And Jaime has not seen his eldest son in two years; to return to a boy who looks quite a bit like a young Ned Stark cannot be easy for him. She doesn’t want it to be easy for him; he doesn’t necessarily deserve a warm relationship with Gerold, but she doesn’t want father and son to be at each other’s throats either. 

She will say this for Jaime; while he is still Lion of Lannister, he does not strike her as nearly as impulsive as he once was, and thus far an outright fight between him and Gerold, or better yet, him and her, has been avoided. Sansa does not seem to know how to act around him, and Berena is quietly relieved that Jaime has avoided conversation with his new good daughter. Nothing he could say could make her feel any better, after all. He’s tried to kill two of her brothers. 

But Lady Brienne is entirely another matter; she towers over Berena, and shifts uncomfortably in a new tunic and pair of shiny boots, and still carries her sword on her, even in the supposed safety of the keep. Berena can hardly blame her. What does astonish her is Brienne’s almost… timidity with her. She had expected a warrior woman such as the Mormont ladies; confident and self-assured, equally at ease in full armor and a fine gown. 

Brienne is clearly at ease with none of it, particularly not making conversation with the wife of the man she spent the last four or five months… the captor of? Traveling companions with? Friends? It seems to have gotten blurred at some point. Then again, Jaime was always good at blurring things. Berena takes turns around the hedgerows at Brienne’s side, also startled by how young and naive in some ways the other woman seems. She can’t be any older than nineteen or twenty, over a decade Berena’s junior, and it is odd to imagine her having spent so much time alone, riding around with a sword at her back.

In some small way, Berena thinks perhaps she envies her. Brienne is awkward and reserved and no beauty, but she is also free. She has no husband or children to tie her to one place, no home she must keep, and her word is her bond, not a marriage vow. She may go where she pleases and fight with whom she prefers. She is scorned and sneered at but still she goes on, unyielding. Her life cannot be easy, but it is her life, and only hers. No one else has steered the way for her, forced her to take a path she did not want.

“My sister Lyanna always wished to carry a sword,” Berena blurts out, looking up at Brienne with open curiosity. “But our lord father would never permit it. How came yours to allow such a thing, my lady?” She must be taller even than Jaime, but she is also musclebound, broad-shouldered. Her eyes are a brilliant, unexpected blue, glinting in her suntanned, freckled face. 

“I was the only one of my siblings to survive childhood,” Brienne says after a moment’s consideration, as if debating how much to share. “My father had no other alternatives for an heir. He insisted I be given a ladies’ education from a septa as well, but he never attempted to stop me from wielding a sword and shield either.” 

“Lyanna sparred with my brothers and me when we were all young, but once she had flowered my father put an end to it,” Berena says with a small, sad smile. “She practiced in private, of course, and she and I would go out hunting together, and practice our archery- but it was not the same as it was for you, I know.”

“Very few ladies have had a childhood like mine,” Brienne replies with a slightly rueful look. “I confess I have always made a very poor lady, and a fair fighter, Lady Berena.”

Berena takes her arm briefly. “You must call me Berena- you spent months with my husband, and to hear him tell it you saved his life a few times along the way. I am very much in your debt.”

Brienne flushes a spectacular shade of red. “I- my lady- Berena- Ser Jaime saved my life, as well. He-,” she hesitates, glancing at Berena. “He is not the man I had judged him to be when we… first met.”

“You mean an honorless villain with little to recommend him beyond his good looks?” Berena breaks into her first genuine smile in weeks, and Brienne stares at her, gaping, then gives a slow nod and slight smile of her own.

“That is one way of… phrasing it, my la- Berena,” she hastily corrects herself. “But, you are his wife-,”

“I am still capable of censuring his behavior,” Berena rolls her eyes a little, and then sighs. “Did he… ever speak of me and the children… when he was… with you?” Now it is her turn to flush a little, more out of embarrassment and regret than anything else. She is acting like a child. What does it matter what he said or did? He was gone, roaming the Riverlands, being taken hostage and losing a hand and fighting a bloody bear. 

Brienne is silent for a few moments, and then she says, “He told me a story once, about you. When he first met you. He said you had eyes he’d never seen in a woman before. That if you’d had a sword in hand or been a man, he knew you would have run him through in an instant. He said… he’d never met anyone like that before, who looked at him that way.” She seems about to say more, but holds her tongue, and ducks her head almost shyly. “I- well, my apologies if that-,”

“No,” says Berena, clearing her throat. “No, there is no need for apologies. You answered truly. Thank you, Brienne.” 

Her chest aches slightly. Part of her does miss that time, when she and Jaime were both still children in truth. He was barely eighteen when they met, and she sixteen. They didn’t know any better, or anything, really. They only thought they knew everything there was to know, like all young people do. But at least there was still the sense that things could change, that they were still learning about each other. 

Now she is not sure whether there is anything more to learn of Jaime, or whether she has learned something or he has learned something or if they are both simply pretending to have acquired wisdom and foresight over the years. But does it make much of a difference? If a man pretends at honor long enough, he may actually acquire some. 

“What do you plan to do now?” she asks after another minute or so of listening to the birdsong and the cool breeze rushing through the trees. She can’t imagine someone like Brienne being keen on the idea of staying at court any longer than is absolutely necessary. But where will she go? Back to the Riverlands? Will she follow Robb’s army back North? 

“I swore an oath to Lady Catelyn,” Brienne says. “To return her daughters to her. But now…,” she trails off uncomfortably. “I have seen Lady Sansa, and she is… safe.” She does not sound entirely convinced of that, but Berena catches her meaning anyways.

“Sansa will come to no harm from my son, or any other member of House Lannister. Were she not wed to Gerold, I would gladly do my best to see her off with you.”

Brienne inclines her head. “And Lady Arya is missing.” She frowns. “I mean to try to find out where she may have gone, if she still lives. At the very least, I could see her back to her mother, and bring her word of Sansa, that she is safe.”

Berena tenses, and wonders- well, what can she say? Should she confess to Brienne the truth of Arya, send her to look for the Hound? What if Arya is already reunited with Robb and Catelyn? Brienne seems to notice her peculiar silence, and looks on the verge of asking something, when there is the sound of quick footfalls nearby, and both turn to see Jaime walking towards them. He has a message clenched in his remaining hand. 

She knows it cannot be good from the look on his face. 

“What-,” Brienne begins, but Jaime says, to both of them, “There’s been word from the Twins. About Tully’s wedding to the Frey girl.” His green eyes are shadowed and grim in the afternoon sunlight. “They turned.”

Berena cannot hide this from Sansa the way she could conceal the distant news of the taking of Winterfell and Bran and Rickon’s fates. The Riverlands are not so far away, and news like this will travel quickly. The worst always does. She is still in shock herself, and braces for tears, for sobs and cries when she tells her and Gerold, “The Freys and Boltons attacked during your uncle Edmure’s wedding. He and your mother have been taken captive. Robb was killed, alongside many others.” 

Gerold blanches, and he opens his mouth to speak, but Sansa does not scream or cry out or break down into tears. Instead she recoils as if struck, and then Berena sees the horror and grief flicker in and out of her eyes and intermingle with something else. Anger. Her cheeks are crimson and her blue eyes are flashing.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye!” she snarls, standing up, shaking off Gerold’s outstretched hand. “I didn’t- you didn’t let me! You didn’t let me go to them, you sent Arya instead- she’s dead too, isn’t she? They killed her and Robb, this is your fault! You sent her away! You made me stay but you sent her!”

Berena feels as though she were just struck in the gut. She shakes. “I- Sansa, you were never meant to-,”

“I found pieces of her hair on the floor,” Sansa sobs, but they’re sobs of fury, not sadness, “I know what happened. She used to always say we should run, that she could pretend to be a boy- you cut her hair and sent her with the Hound, didn’t you? That’s why no one knows where he’s gone either! It was you!” She wipes at her eyes. “And I know about my brothers too,” she adds, sniffling. “I know, Aunt. You tried to keep it from me- I’m not a little girl anymore! How could you?”

“Sansa,” Berena whispers in horror, “Sansa, I was only trying to protect you, I didn’t intend- if I could have gotten you away from here, I would have, but there was no-,”

“No,” snaps Sansa, “no! Instead you married me to your son!” Her voice rises to a shriek. “Because no one cares what I want, I’m just a stupid, useless little bird for you to trick! Now they’re all dead! Father and Bran and Rickon and Robb and Arya- and the Freys will kill Mother too, just like the Lannisters killed Father! I’m the only one left!”

She rushes past Berena and out of the room, and Berena looks to Gerold, who is frozen. “You smuggled Arya out of the city?” He finally utters.

“Did you tell her about Bran and Rickon?” Berena asks hoarsely instead. She never told him, either, but she knows he must have found out from Tywin. The only way a child of his and Sansa’s could inherit Winterfell would be if all her brothers were dead- and now they are. And they all know that the Freys and Boltons turning traitor was no coincidence. They would never have broken guest right like that without someone’s protection. Tywin’s protection.

“She’s my wife,” Gerold snaps. 

“Gerold, she is-,”

“She’s not a child, she’s right,” he cuts her off. “You were wrong to lie to her, especially about them, especially about Arya, Mother. She’s not as fragile as you think.” His face darkens. “Just because you and Father lie to each other all the time-,”

“Gerold!” 

But he is stalking past her, face set in a cold scowl that reminds her painfully, sharply, of Ned’s. “I’m going to speak with her. Don’t come after us.”

Berena stands there for a few moments, then pitches a vase off the nearest table, shattering it onto the floor. She lets out a muffled scream and runs her trembling hands through her hair This- it wasn’t supposed to be like this. She could kill Tywin. A surprise attack on the battlefield would have been one thing. To butcher Robb and his men at his uncles’ wedding is another. And Catelyn- even if she still lives, to see her own child die-

She is not sure how long it has been before Jaime enters the room. “I saw Gerold going after Sansa,” he says quietly. “I think it best to… leave them be for the night.”

Berena stares at the floor, shoulders trembling. Jaime approaches her the way one might a wild dog, and after a few moments wraps his good arm around her shoulders. “I am sorry, Berena. Had I known my father would-,”

“I don’t want to think about your father right now,” she says through gritted teeth. She struggles to contain herself for a few moments, and then finds the question. “Was there any word of Arya? Did the Freys… mention her at all?”

“No,” Jaime says. “They didn’t. And they would have, if they had her. Walder would think her a prize for one of his sons or grandsons, to wed a Stark into their line.”

“Then it may be that she never reached Robb’s army at all,” Berena lets out a long, wavering breath. “I am not sure which is worse. But if she is still out there, with the Hound or not… I have a mission for Brienne.” 

Mayhaps they met with trouble on the road. Mayhaps the Hound took her elsewhere. But if anyone could be trusted to locate Arya, it would be Brienne. And if Brienne can find her… The Neck is not so far a trek north. Howland Reed would take her in, treat her as his own daughter. If she can be found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sansa had to explode at some point, especially since she feels comfortable enough in this AU to express genuine anger and grief in front of her Lannister extended family. I hope your Red Wedding bets were placed. Yes, this is a departure from canon in terms of who is still alive. I can't say much more about it in lieu of spoilers, but the next chapter will concern another wedding people have speculated about in the comments. It will be one of the only chapters in this story to not take place from the POV of Berena, but from someone else entirely. And don't worry: this is far from the end of Berena and Brienne's newfound friendship.


	41. Chapter 41

Gerold wakes up relieved on the morning of the king’s wedding. He feels a light sensation in his gut, almost like giddiness. Joffrey and Margaery’s wedding has been the talk of the court for months now, and it’s finally here. And once Joffrey is wed, they’ll go home, back to the Rock. He won’t have to return to court for years, likely not until spring. And they say winter is fast approaching. It will likely last nearly as long as the summer was.

Gerold was born during the last winter. He has no memory of bitter cold or of seeing the western mountains and hills capped with snow and frost. He has seen snow and ice in the North, but that always seemed so distant and foreign. He cannot imagine King’s Landing coated in snow; it has been a sweltering city of perpetual summer for as long as most his age can remember. 

He just wants to go home. He had been eager to come to court, but it was not… it has been nothing like he anticipated. He was never under any delusions that Joffrey would be a good king; Gerold has never liked his cousin, only tolerated him, and has long since come to despise him, even before he broke his word to spare Lord Stark and ordered the Kingsguard to beat Sansa and Arya. 

But he had thought… he does not know what he had thought. He had thought that Joffrey would continue to behave as a spoiled, impulsive little craven. He had thought it would only serve to make him look better, to prove to Grandfather that Gerold was a Lannister through and through, an heir he could be proud of, one no one would question or mock. Not like Father. If they did not whisper and laugh about Father behind his back before, they do now. A once mighty lion, reduced to a gaunt cripple without a hand. 

Gerold loves Father because he was raised to, but he has never pretended to like him. They are too different. Jason is Father’s real son, Gerold often thought growing up. Jason had Father’s sly tongue, his reckless nature, his love for the sword, his temper. Gerold was always too quiet, too reserved, too stoic. He is not like Mother either; Mother hates to let a silence go on, always finds something to talk about, always puts on a happy face.

And sometimes he hates Mother for always telling him how like Ned Stark he is. He is not a Stark. No matter how much Mother wishes he was, he is not. He may have her Northern looks, but his skin tans and freckles in the sun and it lightens his brown hair. He is not of the North, he does not worship her faceless, nameless gods, he is a Southern lord, and he is proud of it. The name Lannister may be hated by many, but they are still an ancient and noble house, still deserving of their legacy. 

Or, they were. Now their legacy is a wedding turned massacre, and Gerold is not so sure. He did ask Grandfather about it; not publicly, of course, but he couldn’t help himself. His grandsire has always been fond of him; Gerold can tell. He may disdain Mother and find Father a disappointment, but he has never shunned Gerold for lacking hair of gold and eyes of green. Grandfather is only concerned with their reputation, with making sure no one dares besmirch their name or spit at their feet. 

But Grandfather only looked at him in that cold, piercing way of his, and said, “Had I commanded you or your father to kill Robb Stark on the battlefield, you would have done it. Your father certainly tried.” 

Gerold is sure part of him still blames Father for getting captured in the first place, for not managing to cut down Robb a year ago and end the war with the North right then and there. But Mother says even had that happened, the North still would have fought on. Perhaps. They have scattered now, if the reports from the Riverlands are to be believed. Accepted that the rebellion is over now that Robb is dead and House Stark and House Tully both decimated.

“There is honor in killing a man on the battlefield,” Gerold had said, ignoring the thought of seeing Robb’s face streaked with blood and dirt, of what it might feel like to wrench the sword Grandfather gave him for a wedding gift between the gaps in his armor. He had always liked Robb; they’d spent time together at Winterfell, before… everything. Robb had seemed honorable and brave, and he’d loved his brothers and sisters. He remember him teasing Sansa about something, the sound of her laughter. He has never heard her laugh like that since then.

“There is,” Grandfather had acknowledged, “while thousands die around you. And it would be no sure thing. Singers love their battles, but they seldom sing of the losses.” His expression had darkened. “I would not risk our house’s future on a game of chance in the field. You would do well to remember that more wars have been won by the quill than by the sword.”

“But kinslaying-,”

“Kinslaying,” Grandfather had almost sneered, his lip curling in a way that reminded Gerold of both Father and Joffrey. “The Starks were not my kin anymore than yours. Your mother shares blood with them. Half the Great Houses in Westeros share blood. There would be no war for centuries to come if cousins never took up blades against one another.”

“They will say we violated guest rights,” Gerold had lowered his eyes in a show of submission, kept his voice low. Grandfather was never going to admit any wrong in it, and in a sense, part of Gerold could see why. He had simply found the most efficient way to end things, and made full use of it. Paying off the Freys had likely been laughably easy.

“Not a single Lannister was in attendance at that wedding. They were never our guests. Robb Stark and his men laid down their weapons and entered the Twins of their own free will.” Grandfather had paused, and seemed vaguely amused. “They say he even had his wolf chained outside, at his own suggestion. It was frightening the other guests.”

Gerold thinks of Grey Wind, of how the direwolves had made him both profoundly uneasy and almost… sad and regretful in a way, although he could not say why. He was no wolf. He did not envy his cousins for their beasts. But part of him had felt drawn to them nonetheless. He knows Sansa dreams of Lady sometimes. He heard her once, crying in her sleep. She was dreaming she was with her wolf again. “Lady, wait,” she’d pleaded. “Don’t run ahead, I’m coming.”

Were Lady here, she’d have ripped Joffrey’s throat out. And mayhaps Gerold’s as well.

He does not know how to behave around Sansa. She is his wife, but they have not shared a bed since their first night together. He has no more desire to force her to sleep beside him than he had to force her to lie beneath him. And why would he have wanted to? She’d looked terrified when they’d entered the bedchamber together, gaze darting around as if searching for an escape, her hands shaking. And she’d known him, trusted him, and she’d still been that scared, that he might suddenly turn on her, might ignore her fear or even use it against her.

He doesn’t want to think about what it would have been like with Joffrey. Joffrey seems to believe everyone thinks the way he does, and are merely better at hiding it. Gerold thinks it is likely because his mother and father taught him that strength is displaying power often and savagely. 

Breaking everything that won’t bend, and sometimes what will. Gerold does not pretend to know much of what it means to wield power, but he does know the lesson Grandfather imparted on him years ago, and Joffrey much more recently; if you must proclaim it or threaten it aloud, you don’t really have it.

He doesn’t want to have power over Sansa. He wants to have power with her. He’s long-admired her, truly, and although there was never any infatuation, he will not deny that is attracted to her, that he thinks her beautiful and strong, and not stupid or weak or useless. Sansa may fear Joffrey, but she has never let him entirely rule her. She is still kind, and gentle, and she cares about people, even when she stands to gain nothing from it.

Gerold thinks that someday, when they are truly Lord and Lady Lannister, people may speak of them the way they did Grandfather and Lady Joanna. A strong couple. Father and Mother- well, his parents are both strong people, in their own ways, but he has never seen them as strong together. He’s always viewed them as entirely separate entities. There was Mother and her deep sadness behind her laughter and smiles. And there was Father and the shadows that ran across his face often, the sense that he was always holding himself a little bit apart.

Mayhaps it will be different now. They certainly act differently around each other. They seem loathe to leave one another’s sides, but perhaps that is just a precaution for as long as they remain at court. He will have to see what it is like when they are home once more. But he keeps the promise of home lodged in his chest, like a burning ember. 

He misses the Rock, misses his old room and the stables and the armory and all the hidden passages he and Myriam and Jason used to explore. He wants to share it with Sansa, wants her to understand that they are not monsters, that she could be happy there, could even be proud to call herself a Lannister in the future. But he does not know how that can ever be after what Grandfather has done to her mother and brother.

Once he is dressed in a dark green doublet and his new boots, deciding to forgo a cape, he knocks somewhat haltingly on the door that divides his and Sansa’s bedchambers. After a moment, she says quietly, “Come in,” and he does so, ignoring the stab of guilt, as if he is somehow violating her privacy. The maid attending her gives her hair a final adjustment, and then hurries out, curtsying to him.

Sansa is dressed in an airy gown of pale lavender, with new gold bands on her wrists, gifts from Aunt Genna for their wedding. He looks curiously at her hair; she has not worn it up since they married and when she asked him how he preferred it, he said down, not because he does but because he knows that’s how she likes it best. Now she has it gathered up in an ornate net, dripping with tiny amethysts. 

“I’ve never seen you wear that before,” he comments, and Sansa flushed as if in mortification.

“It looks lovely,” he adds, belatedly.

“It was a wedding gift from my aunt Lysa,” she murmurs, standing up from her dressing table. 

Gerold supposes Lord Baelish must have delivered it on her aunt’s behalf. They say they are trying to marry him to Lysa Arryn, to ensure that the Eyrie remains firmly under the Iron Throne’s influence. But if the knights of the Vale have not declared against Joffrey by now, they likely never will. Perhaps Lady Lysa simply does not want war, under any circumstances. After that wedding, who could blame her for not wanting to make an enemy of the Lannisters?

There is very little to say about the ceremony. Gerold mostly pities Lady Margaery during it. He thinks her beautiful- only a fool would say otherwise- but he has never strove to make more than her acquaintance. Knowing Joffrey he’d accuse him of ‘trying to steal his bride’ and have his hands hacked off or some other disturbed whim. She seems clever. It’s a shame that cleverness has no place in the face of Joffrey’s sheer stupidity and cruelty. She may flatter and dote all she likes, and when he tires of that, he will will turn on her like a rabid dog.

The sheer relief emanating from Sansa is hard to miss, however.

They say the feast will be over seventy courses long, but Gerold isn’t very hungry. Mostly because they are only four seats away from offrey’s constant stream of insults, mostly directed at Uncle Tyrion, who has been grim and angry since Grandfather sent his wife back to the Rock, but with the occasional jab towards Gerold, or Sansa, or Mother or Father. 

He glances continually over at his parents, but they have their heads bowed towards one another, a false show of tenderness between a reunited husband and wife. He can just make out Mother’s lips moving. They are not exchanging pleasantries, he will bet coin on that.

Many come over to congratulate him and Sansa once more on their marriage, even Lady Olenna, who tuts and adjusts Sansa’s glittering hair net. “What a beauty you have for a wife,” she tells Gerold with a faint, wickedly sharp smile that makes the back of his neck prickle. “Take care of this one, boy.” He manages a small smile in return.

Cersei seems to divide her time between shooting daggers at Margaery and at Mother, but only one of them is a queen like herself. He has never really thought of her as his aunt, anymore than he thought of Robert Baratheon as his uncle. And the way she looks at Father sometimes; it is strange. He doesn’t like to dwell on what those looks might mean. 

He tries to ignore the pyromancers and the jugglers and the unrelenting stream of singers and the dwarf jousters Joffrey has brought in, goading on Uncle Tyrion all the while, but making conversation with Sansa is difficult, given all the noise and commotion. Besides, she looks almost ill. She is picking at her own food, and very pale. He wonders if it just close proximity to Joffrey, or something else.

“We could make our excuses after the pie is served,” he tells her at one point, but she only gives a quick little nod. He feels almost jilted. Gerold had thought- or hoped- that they might be more open with one another after she learned about the Red Wedding, after he told her about her brothers. She thanked him for telling her the truth. But instead it seems to have the opposite effect, and he thinks mayhaps he should have never said anything at all. Perhaps she just needs time. Time away from court, in particular. It will be easier then, for all of them.

Finally, the massive pie is brought out. 

“Give me your sword!” Joffrey is commanding Ser Ilyn, and Sansa sucks in a quick breath beside him. Margaery is smiling a bit forcedly as her beloved king hacks at the pie, and then they serve each other. Gerold almost has to look away in disgust.

“More wine!” Joffrey is calling.

Gerold is looking at Sansa curiously again. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” he murmurs, and a quick look passes her face. It almost alarms him. “Sansa-,”

“I’m fine,” she snaps, but she is not fine. She looks like a fox with a leg caught in a trap. She moves as if to stand, but seems to force herself to stay still. 

Joffrey is coughing; Gerold is not surprised, from his drunken cramming of his face with pie. The coughing continues. He catches Father and Mother out of the corner of his eye. Mother looks to him, but Father is staring at Joffrey intently. The coughing goes on, and concern begins to ripple through the high table.

“More wine for the king,” someone is saying, “to help him wash his food down-,”

Tyrion is frozen, wine canter in hand, looking up at Joffrey, whose face is turning bright red. Margaery grips at his arm in concern. “My love, are you alright?”

Cersei has risen from her seat, face gone white. Gerold has never seen that sort of look on the queen before. Joffrey is going purple now, clawing and gripping at his throat, and the Kingsguard come running to his aid, several chairs overturn, a woman shrieks, and suddenly everyone is up and moving.

The crowd blocks Gerold’s view, and he turns to see Sansa disappearing through the swarm of lords and ladies. He glances back in the direction of the king; Mother is saying something to Father, and Cersei has begun to scream. The coughing has turned to gargling and retching, and then it goes very quiet before the shouts begin anew.

“Sansa!” Gerold yells, and fights his way off the dais, running for the exit. She can’t have gone far-

“Gerold!” Mother is calling after him, but it is drowned out by the roar of noise. “It was the Imp!” someone cries out as he nears the doors. Gerold pauses, turning back, and can just make out Joffrey’s limp form, cradled in Cersei’s grasp. Tyrion is dumping out the wine onto the floor, and other people are pushing their plates away in horror.

“Poison,” some gasps near him, “it must be poisoned, don’t touch it-,”

Gerold looks around for Sansa once more, but she must have left the ballroom. He runs out and into the hall just as another wave of shouts go up, and he hears the rasp of steel being drawn. He can think of only one place where Sansa would have gone. He makes it to the godswood in record time, and bursts into the relative quiet of the sanctuary, breathless and red-faced. He spots Sansa waiting anxiously by the Heart Tree. She sees him, and takes a step back.

“Joffrey’s dead,” he calls out, his voice echoing queerly among the trees. “I don’t know what’s happened, but they’re saying it was poison-,”

“Gerold,” Sansa says, voice trembling. “Gerold, I-,”

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Gerold pauses. Something else is going on. She seems almost torn. 

“I’m sorry,” she breathes out, “but I have to go.”

“Go where?” he asks, dumbly. What is she talking about? Wisps of auburn hair are escaping the net.

“It’s not your fault,” she takes a small step towards him, “but he promised he would take me home, and I have to. You must understand. I don’t- this is my only chance to go home, I have to-,”

“Sansa, what are you talking about-,” she sees something behind him and gasps, reaching for him suddenly, but then something hits the back of his head, hard, and his vision flickers out, stars exploding in the corners of his eyes. Gerold staggers, then crumples to the mossy ground, and Sansa shrieks. 

“Be quiet,” someone is saying in a low, hoarse voice, “You need to be quiet and come-,”

“You didn’t have to hurt him,” Sansa is saying in horror, “what did you- Gerold, please, wake up, Gerold-,” But his ears are ringing so loud he can’t hear her anymore. A boot prods at him but he lies there limply, unable to move, the pain in his skull too much to bare, and then there is nothing. When he hears again and tries to open his eyes, conscious of the hot blood drying in his scalp, he hears the distant sound of shouts in the distance. He does not know if it has been a few minutes or a few days.

Someone is kneeling at his side, armor clinking, shaking him gently. “Come on, my lord, you have to stand,” a voice says- and he groans and opens his eyes more to come face to face with the Maid of Tarth. Lady Brienne slowly but surely hauls him to his numb feet, hunched over in order to wrap his arm around her brawny shoulders. “Quickly now,” she says, “we haven’t much time.”

“Sansa,” he slurs, “she…”

“It’s your lady mother I fear for,” Brienne moves swiftly towards the exit, half dragging him along the way. Gerold shuts his eyes and tries to push back the throbbing ache of pain in his head. “What’s wrong with Mother?”

“The queen,” Brienne shifts her hold on him. “She’s accused her and Lord Tyrion of murder.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should be back to our regularly scheduled Berena programming. Hint hint: I'm not putting myself through the torture of writing a certain trial scene. ("You are now leaving King's Landing. Please visit again soon!")


	42. Chapter 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said we were back to the Berena programming? It turns out I lied. Tune in for a special episode of the Cersei show instead. (Fun fact: this is my first time ever writing from her POV, and I enjoyed it as much as I feared I would).

Cersei wants them dead. Both of them. She wants to see her twisted imp of a brother’s head rotting on a spike alongside the Stark bitch’s. She wants Tyrion to know he failed, that all his scheming and plotting and smug looks and veiled threats have amounted to nothing. She wants to see the slow realization that she has won, that she was always going to win, settle over him like a cloak just before Ilyn Payne takes off his head. 

And she wants Berena Stark to know that she is nothing, has always been nothing, and has nothing. No family, no title, no children, no husband. She never had Jaime. He was only ever toying with her. She was an occasional amusement. Jaime is a Lannister, a proper lion, the greatest warrior Westeros has ever known. He was meant for far greater things than some insipid little Northern savage crying over all the dead fools who share her name. Soon she’ll just be another in a long line of dead Starks. Their time is over. It’s a new age now, a golden one. 

Or, it should have been. Everything she had always wanted- to see her son on the throne, to know Robert was writhing in his grave at the thought of it, to see herself standing beside Joff, the real ruler in truth, the queen regent- she may still be the queen regent, but if the Tyrells have their way she will soon be placed by a king regent. Their crippled oaf of a son, Willas, who will soon have his greedy Tyrell hands all over her daughter, whispering poison and lies in her ears the same way Margaery tried to with Joffrey. 

Cassana was never supposed to be queen. Cersei was supposed to be queen. And now in a cruel jape, she is faced with the possibility that the queen that mad old witch spoke of may very well have not been limpid Sansa Stark or whorish Margaery Tyrell but her own blood, her own child. Cassana is innocent. Cersei does not consider many in this world innocent, but her daughter is one of them, damnably Baratheon looks or not. There is not a cunning bone in the girl’s body. She doesn’t have the dreams, the ambitions that Cersei had at her age. She only wants to be safe and coddled and content. There is no roar lurking within her.

Yet still Cersei is plagued by the thought of it. Cassana is not even twelve now, a gawky little girl who has yet to grow into her looks, with tangled black curls and blue green eyes slightly too big for her square face. But in a few years she will have reached her majority, will be a woman in truth, one whose actions Cersei cannot predict or control the way she can now. She fears that more than anything. Boys are different; Joffrey always clung to her, even in his rasher moments. Cassana was always at her father’s side, begging Robert to pay her any attention at all. And how has she repaid Cersei, her own loving mother? She’s barely even cried for her brother, the rightful king.

In truth, few have cried for Joffrey, although many have claimed to mourn him. Cersei doesn’t expect them to understand. He was her son. Her first child, her bright, strong boy. She loved him in a way no one else could. Even Father- her own father- could not see it. Too busy fawning over Berena Stark’s wretched little spawn. Gerold. As if Gerold could ever measure up to Joffrey Baratheon, a true prince of the realm. Gerold Lannister, if he can even be called that, looks nothing like a Lannister. Nothing like Father, but still he speaks of the boy as if he were-

As if he were the heir he had always sought in Jaime. It’s absurd. Jaime was born to rule. He is feared throughout the realm. Was feared. She will admit the loss of his hand is… disturbing. But he can still hold a sword, can he not? He has not been unmanned by it. No, his real detriment is his wife, who he will soon be rid of. Cersei thinks of Berena, when she does deign to think of her, as a cloying little leech that has been latched onto her twin for far too long. 

Jaime was never quite the same after he wed her. It cannot be her beauty- no one will ever write songs about her homely looks and thin hair, and it certainly cannot be her talent in bed- she has always been such a little mouse that Cersei cannot imagine her striving to please Jaime in the marital bed. More likely that she lies there limply, staring at the ceiling, while Jaime plays the dutiful son and husband and tries to get another worthless child out of her.

Well, Cersei played the good daughter and the good wife just as he has, and she was rewarded after all her years of toil, was she not? She never slept better than the night Robert was gored by that boar. Jaime may not see it now, but once all is said and done and he is finally free of the wriggling leech that is Berena, he may even thank her. His vision will be unclouded, and he will see once and for all that it is Cersei who has always had his best interests in his mind, Cersei who has always sought to protect and guide him.

One cannot replace a tawny lioness with a mangy little dog and expect to be satisfied, after all. And if Berena Stark thinks some earnest words and tears will save her now, she will be sorely mistaken. She may have her little friends, may even have the fondness of Cersei’s aunt and uncle, but justice will be done, and the court will see that treachery runs like the thickest sort of blood through her entire line. The brother would have seen Joffrey killed, his throne handed over to Stannis. The sister simply brought the plans to fruition. She just had enough sense to keep her head on her neck long enough to see it through.

Tyrion likely orchestrated the entire thing, but she wouldn’t be surprised if Berena was the one to drop in the poison herself. That she hated the king is well-known; she had just as much reason to want him dead as the Imp. She had not even Ned Stark’s infamous stoicism to hide behind. When Father had informed her that Jaime would be marrying the surviving Stark daughter, Cersei had expected another Lyanna. She had never met Robert’s first whore, but she had imagined another wildling masquerading as a lady, all defiant speeches and rough looks.

But then she had seen the mewling cunt that was Berena Stark with her very own eyes, and she’d felt relieved. Reassured, almost. This was no she-wolf. She was just a frightened, coddled little girl who’d not the first instinct for courtly grace or deft manipulations. A simpering child turning her watery grey eyes on Jaime like a pup begging for a treat. Cersei had been pleased, confident that she’d had nothing to fear from the likes of her. Jaime would loathe her and scorn her and Father would be infuriated and Ned Stark would scowl and Cersei would still be the sum and whole of everything he loved and adored.

Somewhere over the years it had been muddled. Jaime had rejected court, rejected Robert, rejected her, and retreated to the Rock with his idiot wife and and a steadily growing gaggle of children. He had turned away from her, insisted the risk was too great, resented her for letting Robert sow his seed in her. He had mocked her fury when she had to see Berena Stark coyly smiling, pregnant by her own brother, her lover- who would not be? Cersei’s one triumph had been her confidence that the girl had no idea. Had no idea that Jaime had always been Cersei’s, that she stood no chance of winning him over from the start.

Yet, somehow, she had, at least enough for her twin to not have to play-act at anger. 

“This is absurd,” he says, not for the first time, at a table full of Lannisters; Cersei and Father and Uncle Kevan and Aunt Genna. “My wife had nothing to do with Joffrey’s death- nor, for that matter, did Tyrion. This is madness, Father.”

“Madness?” Cersei snipes in response, biting back a shriek of laughter. “What is mad is your blind trust in two treacherous worms. Tyrion has always hated my son, and your wife is no better- why, Sansa was likely part of it as well. It would certainly account for her disappearance,” she draws the last word out mockingly.

“Gerold says she was kidnapped, and I’m inclined to believe him-,” Jaime retorts hotly.

“The boy was knocked unconscious,” Father cuts them both off, tone cold and flat. “He has no idea what he saw and didn’t see. As for Tyrion, he was holding the wine at the time. And your wife…,” he pinions Cersei with a sharp look. “Calling for both of their arrests was reckless of you. If it comes to light during the trial that either is innocent, we will all look like fools.”

“They are not innocent,” Cersei sneers, glancing at Genna and Kevan.

“If you believe for an instant that the Stark girl had the gall or cunning to have your son killed, you are a fool,” Genna says, shaking her head. “Tyrion, I could believe. He would certainly have his reasons-,”

“And Berena Stark does not?” Cersei exclaims. “Why else would she have come back to court-,”

“To ensure your son didn’t beat the Stark girls to death, from the looks of it,” Kevan says drolly, and Cersei rears back as if to slap him before a look from Father settles her back in her seat.

“I want her in a cell,” Cersei says, when some of her fury has faded. “Keeping her confined to her chambers like a naughty child- what sort of message does that send?”

“The message that I will not have Lady Lannister locked in a cage for a crime she may or may not have committed,” Father slams a hand down on the table, and nearly everyone jumps. Jaime is still silently enraged. She ignores him. He will come to her in time. She is sure of it.

After Father and Kevan and Genna have left, she catches him by the door. He doesn’t turn to her and embrace her, but he doesn’t wrench away as he has in the past, either. Cersei leans up so as to whisper to him, her breath tickling his ear. “Come to the sept tonight. Please, Jaime. You should say goodbye to him.” She knows she has succeeded when he pauses for a moment before moving away. Cersei allows herself a small smile of relief. It is working. She will have him back soon enough.

The sept is cool, almost cold. Cersei stands besides Joffrey’s armored body. He was always tall for his age, just like his father, but he seems young and frail in death. She examines his pale skin, the powder on his face and neck to hide the ravages of the poison. No mother should have to see her children buried. She hears faint footfall and turns away as Jaime comes out of the shadows. He has always managed to walk lightly, like a cat. He is still graceful to her, even with that horrible stump and his butchered hair. He seems older now. She blames the Starks for that. She was jubilant to hear of the Red Wedding. They deserved far worse after what was done to Jaime.

“You came,” she says, careful not to sound too smug or assured. Jaime has always preferred her pining for him, after all. How he used to tease and taunt her when they were young. How he loved it when she stroked his ego. The Young Lion, so irresistible that even his own sister could prefer no other. And he was such a handsome boy. More handsome than any of his sons, she will admit that, by Cersei or his wife.

Jaime just looks past her at Joffrey’s corpse. 

“He admired you so,” says Cersei in that same hushed tone. “You could have been his father for true, Jaime, if only we’d had more time-,”

“I was never his father,” he says brusquely. “You made sure of that.”

“You were gone,” she pleads, fighting back her irritation. “What choice did I have?”

“The choice to not have my wife arrested, for one,” he mutters, and Cersei barely resists rolling her eyes. Instead she takes his arm, his good arm. She dislikes looking at the other one. Father is having a golden hand made for him. She can hardly wait. 

“I am sorry it grieves you so,” she says, instead of what she would like to say, but she is well used to holding her tongue. “But come now, Jaime. This was your son. Your own flesh and blood. Family has to come first.” I have to come first, she thinks fiercely, indignantly. It shouldn't even be a question.

“He is not the first child I have lost,” Jaime utters, and Cersei stares at him for a moment, utterly confused. Then it finally dawns on her. He is referring to the child born months too early, and very still. Before his and Berena’s youngest, the little weepy girl they call Lorelei. She nearly laughs, but suspects he might strike her if she did.

“The babe?” she questions, careful to keep her tone devoid of any emotion. “That was years ago-,”

“It does not seem that way now,” he is looking at her but not truly, his gaze elsewhere, shadowed in the darkness. “It was-,” he only shakes his head. “They could tell it was a girl,” he says. “She was so small, but the maester let me hold her. I thought she looked like you.”

Cersei is not sure if he meant that to hurt her or not. She wraps her arms around him slowly. “I’m sorry, my love.”

“Berena would not see anyone for weeks,” he continues, as if confessing something to her, as if he is still wracked over this, but how could he be? It was so long ago. Many women have miscarriages. “And I did not want to hurt her, so I let her be. I went hunting,” he sounds as if he is choking slightly on the last word, as if in disbelief. “I should not have. I should have been there. I- it was my duty.”

Cersei kisses his neck sweetly. “You did all you could. Don’t let it trouble you so, Jaime. You are too strong to dwell on such things.” It unnerves her to see him like this, so… withdrawn. He was never like this. She has always loved him because he was not one for contemplation or faraway dreams. When Jaime wanted something, he took it. When he felt something, he said it.

He is silent, and just when she is about to fear he will push her away, he turns and kisses her, roughly. She backs into the altar of the Mother, and eagerly casts aside her cloak. She has missed him, truly. This is no lie, what she feels now, what she knows he must feel as well. “I love you,” she pants as she unbuckles his belt. He is still kissing her, but he makes no move to unlace her black lace mourning gown. 

She only smells the smoke when he is fully sheathed inside her, and then she bucks in alarm underneath him, scrabbling at his shoulders. “Jaime, fire- something’s burning!” she hisses in alarm, and he hastily withdraws as she adjusts her grown and runs out of the sept, one hand on her crown as she stares up into the sky. The Tower of the Hand is in flames, and surrounded by what seems like half the guards in the palace and the entirety of the Kingsguard, now Queensguard, as they try to put out the fire before it spreads. 

“Cassana,” she says immediately, “I must go to her,” and she takes Jaime’s arm in a more restrained manner, just as Kevan comes hurrying over to them, face drawn.

“Is it spreading?” Cersei demands, heart seizing for a moment. 

“The fire is being contained,” Kevan says, and then looks between her and Jaime. “Lady Berena and the Maid of Tarth are both missing.” 

Cersei almost screams, but she is momentarily transfixed by the look on Jaime’s face. It is the strangest expression. Did she not know him as well as she does, she would almost call it contentment, in between the shadows of the flames dancing on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, how convenient that a fire would break out at a time like this! Drawing the attention of much of the court and guards! And while Cersei was, ahem, otherwise occupied! What a coincidence, says Jaime. You know, like a liar.


	43. Chapter 43

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise we will see Berena again before the end. But first, a brief segue into the Riverlands.

Catelyn does not know how many days it has been when she begins to come back to herself. Possibly only a few, or perhaps several weeks. She does not remember much after Roose Bolton rammed his dagger into her son’s chest. She only remembers opening up the fool’s throat and then hands grabbing at her, pulling her hair, and then her vision blurred and bled away, leaving only darkness. When she awoke she was in a tower room with a maester who had maids hold her down so he could give her milk of poppy and then it was dark again.

All she has are blurred visions; thrashing in her bed from nightmares, huddled in a ball, sobbing, and pacing the room like a caged animal, screaming until her throat was hoarse and raw. Her window was barred, lest she try to throw herself from it. Her meals did not come with knives. The maids sent to help her bathe flinched away from her as if she might attack at any moment. Perhaps she did; she remembers blood under her nails and panicked shrieks.

But then one day she wakes and while she does not feel like herself, she has regained enough clarity to take stock of her situation. She sees the room around her as if for the first time, instead of seeing Robb’s corpse and a sea of bodies and broken dishes. She doesn’t hear that song ringing in her ears. What she hears, beyond the distant sounds of the Twins around her, is silence, and her own breathing. She is sitting in a faded nightgown on a lumpy bed, her blankets a distorted mass at the end. 

The room contains a single window with iron bars and faint sunlight filtering through onto the dusty floor. It has clearly not been cleaned in some time. There is a battered wardrobe in the corner with a few old gowns in it, likely cast-offs of some Frey woman. There are no tapestries nor wall hangings, and the floor is bare. The hearth is cold and empty. A distinct damp chill permeates the air. She wraps her arms around herself and feels the hollowness of her stomach for the first time. She is hungry, loathe as she is to admit to it.

Robb is dead. Her children are all lost to her now. Catelyn seizes and wracks with sobs, but no tears come. Her eyes are dry. She wipes at her mouth and swallows hard, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. But she is alive. They didn’t kill her. They had no real reason to; with her husband and children dead, she is no threat to them. Edmure is the lord of Riverrun- Edmure. She doesn’t know what happened to her brother. He had gone to his bedding. Is he alive? 

Surely, she thinks desperately, he must be, for why else would they have waited until after the bride and groom had departed to attack? He must be a captive like herself. She has to find him. But first she has to find a way out of this room. Fighting back the rising tide of panic, Catelyn exhales in and out. She can hear her uncle in her mind, telling her to breathe. That is what he would say, would he not? Breathe, Cat. Catch your breath and think carefully. You are not dead yet.

She wishes she was. It would be simpler if she was. But she is not, she is still here, and she cannot abandon Edmure and give herself over to the madness festering inside her. He has always been her little brother. He needs her. She rises shakily and pads barefoot over to the door, listening. It is obviously locked, but she can hear the faint clink of armor outside. So she is under guard. There is no chance of her finding a way to slip out of this room unnoticed, especially not when the Freys likely consider her an unstable madwoman. She will have to bide her time. She must wait. 

If they think she is broken, that she has accepted her fate as a childless widow, a hostage, if they believe themselves to have finally triumphed over House Tully, they may grow arrogant. She knows Walder Frey, what he thinks of her. It will take time, but if she leads them to believe that she has given up resisting, they will grow complacent, perhaps remove her guards, begin to allow her out of this room. Then she can discover where Edmure is, find a way to get a message to him.

Her uncle remains at Riverrun. He is not a foolish man, and the Freys are too large to possibly hope to keep the news that Catelyn and Edmure were captured, not killed with the rest, a secret for long. Brynden will do whatever it takes to free them. It gives her some comfort, however faint. But she must focus on the task at hand. She has to concentrate on taking things step by step. She needs to see Edmure. If she focuses on that, and doesn’t think about the rest, the pain is slightly more bearable, an ache rather than agony.

There is a timid knock at her door, and Catelyn immediately darts back to the bed, trying to look as though she has just woken up. She hears it unlocking and tenses, trying to restrain her expression as three woman enter. Two are maids, one clutching a tray of food, the other a pitcher. The third is Roslin Frey. Catelyn stares at her, and feels a sudden surge of hatred so profound that she can almost feel herself rising from the bed. All she can think of is wrapping her hands around Roslin’s and squeezing until the white skin reddens and purples.

But Roslin seems just as frozen as she is, and then, upon seeing Catelyn sitting up and alert, looking directly at her, gives a choked gasp and looks as though she might run out of the room. Instead she only takes a small step backwards, before seeming to compose herself. “My lady,” she says in the small voice of a child, not a woman wedded and bedded. “I am- Lady Catelyn, I am so sorry. For everything. You must- you must know if I could have-,” she seems to cut herself off, and just shakes her head minutely. “Please, my lady. I never wished to see you harmed, or-,”

But she cannot admit to that, Catelyn thinks. Robb is- was- her eyes prick with unshed tears- a traitor in the eyes of the Iron Throne, and the Freys have at long last made their allegiance perfectly clear. Roslin can extend her sympathies to Catelyn, but to openly speak in defense of Robb would be akin to denouncing her own family. And she cannot do that, either. Some of her hatred eases, although the desire to claw and squeeze and gouge remains. Roslin seems even younger than she did when Catelyn saw her last. She is only eighteen.

Catelyn says nothing, not trusting herself not to scream and shout, and gives a small jerky movement of her head instead. Encouraged by her silence, the maids come forward and set the food in front of her, heads bowed and gazes firmly on the floor. Roslin hovers anxiously near the door, nearly wringing her hands together until Catelyn picks up the bowl of watery broth and takes a sip. Her stomach turns instantly, but she forces herself to drink a little more. She is weak as a child right now. She will need her strength. When she takes a long sip of water as well, the maids draw back and file out, satisfied she is not going to start throwing things. That leaves her and her once would-be-good-daughter, now good-sister. If Edmure still lives.

Roslin knows better than to come to close, but she does sit down in a chair nearby. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her face is drawn; her hands shake in her lap. Catelyn wonders at that, but continues to drink her broth, pick at the little bit of bread given to her, and sip at her water until she can’t stomach anymore. Then she sits there, not quite looking at Roslin, waiting. Perhaps the girl may be of use to her, if she does truly grieve what happened.

“Edmure is unharmed,” Roslin says at last, glancing up at Catelyn.

Catelyn feels a slight easing of relief, however small. She still has some family left, then. 

“He- he is treated well enough, my lady,” Roslin continues in a tremulous voice. “He- he is not kept chained or in a cell, he has been permitted to stay with me so long as he does not fight.”

Small mercies, Catelyn thinks savagely, fitting for a man such as Walder Frey, but still she says nothing, only looks at Roslin, not so much with loathing but with need now, silently urging her to go on, to reveal more. She feels almost as if she is a septon hearing a confession of sins. Does Roslin have no one else to confide in but a prisoner? The girl is looking at her desperately, as if Catelyn were her own kin.

Roslin’s mother has been dead for years now, she remembers then, distantly. She has four elder brothers, one a maester in the Vale. Two, Perwyn and Olyvar, were not at the wedding. That perhaps says something for their loyalties. The one who was, Benfrey, she remembers him. Wrenching Dacey Mormont by the arm before she smashed a flagon in his face and escaped him, only to die minutes later. 

“Please,” Roslin whispers, and sounds almost on the verge of tears. “Please say something, Lady Catelyn. I am so sorry. I tried to- I tried to refuse it, I said I wouldn’t marry Edmure when they- when they told me, but,” she stammers, “but they wouldn’t listen, they- Benfrey, he-,” her shoulders heave and she does begin to cry then. “I’m sorry. I should have fought them still. It was wrong. I didn’t want to. I- I would have married Lord Robb, I would have, your lady, but-,”

“He was a king,” Catelyn says, and her voice is as thin and cracked as an old crone’s.

Roslin freezes and stares at her. 

“My son was a king,” Catelyn repeats herself. “I would see him buried. Will House Frey not at least grant me that?”

“There- there is nothing to bury,” Roslin admits after a moment, bowing her head. “They… things were done… to the body, my lady, and after it was… it went into the river with the rest.”

With the rest. Catelyn sees the corpses in her mind, floating down the dark river, bloated and rotting. 

There is a long silence, and then she asks numbly, “When may I see Edmure?”

“I will- I will tell them that you are… recovered,” Roslin says. “I will tell them you are cooperating, my lady. Whatever I must say to see you and my husband reunited. I will do it. I cannot- it will not… make up for the rest, but I will see you with your brother again. I swear it to you on-,” she hesitates.

“On your honor as a Frey?” Catelyn cannot hide the bite in that.

“On my honor as Roslin Tully,” Roslin declares, and for a moment she seems not the piteous girl but almost a woman grown, determined and firm. Then she slowly stands. “I will send someone for your dishes, and with fresh clothes.”

She does as she said she would; perhaps ten minutes later the door creaks open once more and two servants come in; a maid with a bundle of gowns and cloaks in her arms, and a serving boy. The maid immediately begins to lay the dresses out on the bed, speaking softly to Catelyn as if she were a frightened child, and the boy comes for the dishes. Catelyn barely looks at either of them, but the boy hums under his breath as he gathers up the tray, and for a moment it snags her attention.

“The Maiden sings of love so sweet, the Mother sings her babes to sleep, but the Crone has no songs left to sing… Fair maidens dance and good mothers pray, but the Crone looks back to yesterday…” Catelyn glances at him; a scrawny little thing wearing little more than rags, hair dark with kitchen grease, hands scrubbed raw from washing pots and dishes. But he has a fair enough voice for a lad.

“Don’t mind him, my lady,” the maid says dismissively, casting a scornful look at the boy as he heaves up the heavy tray and turns to go. “That’s just Arry. Soft in the head, he is. Always singing to himself, but Cook says he’s a hard worker.” 

“Arry?” Catelyn murmurs, and the boy pauses in the doorway, his back to her. She stares at his frame, the slant of his bony shoulders, the way he holds himself, the tilt of his head, his ears, visible under his short hair. The back of his dirty neck. His humming has ceased momentarily. It is a common enough song; Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Played at nearly every wedding, and a frequent lullaby for children of devout mothers.

Children of mothers.

Children of-

“Arry,” she whispers, but the boy disappears into the hall, the door slamming shut behind him. The maid is staring at her queerly. Catelyn feels herself trembling, but forces herself to stay where she is, to not fly at the door and slam herself against it and demand to be let out, to cry and scream for the boy- the boy who is not a boy at all, unless she is truly mad, unless this is all some twisted dream- for Arry-

“We have a few of them,” the maid continues after a moment, when Catelyn manages to compose herself and give a wan, dull smile. Perhaps she believes Catelyn has gone soft in the head as well, and is merely chattering for the sake of chattering. “Northern lads, you know.” Here she hesitates, eying Catelyn warily. “They- well, they came south, and now their masters or knights are dead, and the steward took them on. Common boys, you know. No families to ransom them.”

“I will pray for them,” says Catelyn, and the maid smiles.

“Of course, my lady. ‘Tis very kind of you.”

Not nearly as kind as the gods, if what she just heard and saw was real, if it is not her mind playing tricks on her. If she still call herself a Mother, and not a Crone.


	44. Chapter 44

Berena had never fully appreciated being able to travel in relative comfort before she was on the run. They have something of a head-start, since she knows Jaime will do what he does best, lie, and misdirect all attempts to track them. And they did not leave much of a trail, but it is certain that House Rykker of Duskendale has been alerted to be on guard for a female knight and a noble lady. Thus they have avoided the town and are camped out on the chalk cliffs, where the only other threat is the occasional fishing village.

Going west was not an option. Berena may be Lady Lannister but Cersei marked her a scheming murderess, and so she could not just saunter home to the Rock and refuse to return to court. No, the only option is to head north, and try to find any information on where Sansa may have been taken along the way. The Boltons may control the North for the time being, but Berena knows places and people Roose Bolton does not, and she is certain Howland Reed would shelter her, or Wyman Manderly. 

It is certainly much easier to hide in the rural North than in a city like King’s Landing, where you can find an eager witness and gossip on every street corner. So for three weeks now it has just been her and Brienne, riding mostly by night and keeping well away from people during the day. Berena has hacked her hair off to her shoulders and is clad not in any finery but in faded, drab riding gown and a thick cloak. She supposes she is for once lucky to have very inconspicuous looks.

Because of this she feels safe enough to venture into one of the villages to purchase food. They are well-equipped with coin, which at long last she is making some use of, since hunting is scarce on the cliffs. Berena walks quickly through the crowded dirt lane that comprises the marketplace, keeping her head down and sticking to clumps of other chattering woman, haggling over prices and scolding their children. One girl’s high laughter reminds her of Myriam’s, and her heart twists. Jaime will bring her back. He must.

But pleased with her own discretion, she relaxes slightly after purchasing some dried venison and filling up her flask with water from a well. She nears the edge of the crowd and is avoiding a particularly large puddle when a hand lands on her arm and drags her into a narrow alley between two cottages. Berena gasps, smashes the leather flash into her captor’s face, and then blanches in shock to see her son reel back, clutching his nose.

“Gerold?” she hisses.

Gerold is too busy trying to stem the flow of blood to answer, but the boy at his side, whom she at first does not recognize, gives a tiny little nod. “Milady,” he rasps. 

Berena stares even more. “Podrick Payne? Tyrion’s squire?”

“We’ve been trying to catch up to you for a fortnight now,” Gerold finally manages, thickly, as he wipes at his nose and mouth. “I think you may have broke it, Mother.”

“I should do much worse,” Berena snaps, before glancing around warily. By the grace of some gods, no one has noticed the minor scuffle. “Come on.” They wind behind one of the cottages and past an animal pen before she feels safe enough to speak. “How did you find us?”

Gerold looks vaguely proud of himself, and Berena thinks that for once, in his smugness, he does resemble Jaime. “Father was trying to sell everyone on you having run for Harrenhal, so I knew that couldn’t be the case. And you wouldn’t have made for the Rock either. You’d want to go North, but if you could get a ship, you would, so you’d stick to the coast.” He pauses. “I think Grandfather could be trying a lot harder to find you, but…”

“He would rather see Tyrion hang for it,” Berena finishes the thought for him. “And he has other problems. Cassana was to wed Willas- has she?”

“Father wanted to send me back to the Rock before another wedding,” Gerold says, expression darkening. “He didn’t want me there for the trial, and they won’t marry Cassana until that’s over, anyways. The queen is furious. She wants it broken, but Lord Mace has already sent for Ser Willas.”

“I am imagine they are quite eager to see him on the throne,” Berena mutters. “Cassana is twelve. Her husband will rule in all but name, even with Cersei or Tywin as her regent.”

“They wanted to wed Margaery to me,” Gerold says flatly. “That’s part of why Father wanted me gone. It’s known I never…” he trails off, flushing slightly.

“You never consummated your marriage with Sansa,” says Berena. “So they want it annulled and their daughter lady of the Rock. And the sooner the better, after concocting some evidence to see me executed.”

“You think the Tyrells did it,” Podrick finally speaks, and Berena looks to him in surprise. He may have all the presence of a mouse, but his voice does not stammer or shake.

“I am very certain the Tyrells did it,” she says. “For I certainly didn’t, and Tyrion could have done it a thousand times cleverer than that. They must have decided they’d rather a son as prince consort than a daughter as queen.” Were the circumstances different, she might pity Lady Margaery, who stood to either endure Joffrey as his wife, or be sidelined for her own brother.

“I agree,” Gerold says after a moment. “And I think I know how they did it, Mother.”

She makes him wait until they are reunited with Brienne. Pod leads them to the ponies, while Gerold explains Jaime’s intention to send him back to Casterly Rock before he found himself betrothed to Margaery. Gerold conceded, but this apparently did not go any further than the Kingswood.

“So I’m to believe you plotted with a Payne, gave your own honor guard the run-around, and set off after myself and Lady Brienne?” Berena is not sure whether to be infuriated, horrified, or impressed. Gerold seems to be angling for the latter. He says nothing, and she concludes, after a few moments, “It sounds like something your father would do. Take that as you will.”

She glances at Podrick. “Why have you come?”

The boy seems to debate that for a few moments, and then nods to Gerold. “Lord Tyrion’s in a cell. I can’t help him now. Lord Gerold was always nice to me.”

Brienne jumps to her feet upon seeing Berena approach through the mist with two other figures, but eases once they get close enough to recognize. “My lord,” she greets Gerold with a bow of her head, the confusion plain on her face, even more so when she notices Podrick. “...Payne?”

“Just Pod,” he mumbles.

After a very lengthy explanation, Brienne looks to Berena. “My lady- Berena?” she corrects herself. 

“I can hardly send them back,” Berena exhales through her nose. “There is nothing to do but take them with us, wherever we end up.” She narrows her eyes at Gerold. “If the worst comes to pass, you realize this will be taken as a sign of your guilt as well.”

He nods, as stone-faced as Ned always was. 

“Very well.” She can feel a headache brewing already. “Tell us how you think the Tyrells killed a king.”

Podrick has sat down a rock as if awaiting a story, and even Brienne, for all her stoicism, looks curious.

“Sansa went to pray much more than usual after the Red Wedding,” Gerold begins slowly. “I accompanied her once or twice, but I usually let her go alone to the godswood. She said she felt safest there.” He pauses. “She went almost every night leading up to Joffrey’s wedding. And she wore a hair net I’d never seen before to the wedding. With amethysts all over. She said it was a gift from her aunt, which means Lord Baelish must have delivered it.”

“The council wanted to see him wed to Lysa Arryn,” Berena folds her arms across her chest. “To ensure the Vale remained loyal.”

“Sansa once said Lord Baelish grew up with her mother,” Gerold’s mouth is a thin line of displeasure. “Do you know if that’s true, Mother?”

“I believe so,” says Berena. “Ned was never very fond of him. Nor was anyone- the man is good with money. That will win you many friends, and more than a few enemies, particularly when employed by Lannisters.”

“But during the wedding,” Gerold continues, licking his lips, “she was acting so strange- I knew she’d be nervous to have to sit near Joffrey but I would have thought she’d be relieved- he was married now, and we were going to leave court. But she was on edge all day. And then Lady Olenna came over to congratulate us, and she… she adjusted Sansa’s hair net.”

“How long before the choking?” Berena presses.

Gerold shrugs. “Ten minutes? Fifteen?”

“Enough time for her to slip something into his cup,” Brienne judges, and Berena nods. “More than enough.”

“This may sound mad,” says Gerold, “but Mother, the poison would have to be in something. Something that wouldn’t be noticed dropped into a drink.”

“Like a tiny jewel,” Berena understands now, and she can tell Brienne and Pod do as well, from the looks on their faces. “It was in the hair net. That means Baelish was in league with them. He convinced Sansa to wear it to the wedding. Which means if Sansa went missing directly afterwards-,”

“Then she’s with Baelish,” Gerold snaps. “She has to be. He took her, Mother. Or he paid someone to. Wherever she is, she must be with him by now.”

“Why would he take Lady Sansa?” Brienne questions, frowning. “Surely if he just wanted her kidnapped he could have done it at any time.”

“Sansa is heir to Winterfell,” Berena closes her eyes briefly so she can think straight, her mind racing. “Arya- Arya may still be alive, but where she is currently is anyone’s guess. But Sansa- Baelish is a clever man. He would not have taken her on a whim. He will have plans. If he has Sansa, he has some leverage over the North.”

“But the North is under Bolton rule,” Gerold argues.

Berena’s eyes snap open. “And for a thousand years before now, it was ruled by Starks. It is not so simple as to just declare Roose Bolton warden. People will resist, likely are resisting, even if they have officially yielded to the Iron Throne. If Petyr Baelish has Sansa, he may have some hope of rallying Northerners around her to reclaim Winterfell.”

“With what army?” Brienne questions bluntly. “He cannot simply show up at the Neck with Lady Sansa and expect soldiers to come running.”

It is a good question. With what army, indeed. Berena knows Gerold knows before he has even opened his mouth. He was always her clever boy. “With the Vale’s,” he declares. “Baelish means to do what he said he would- he’ll marry Lysa and use the knights of the Vale to march North.”

“He will have to wed Sansa to a Vale man,” Berena says. “Lysa’s son, perhaps, although the boy can be no older than ten. He’ll shore up every alliance possible and unite the Vale with the North.”

“It’s a good plan,” Brienne admits.

“It is,” Berena says. “Which is why we’re going to use it.”

Now it is their turn to gape at her.

“What?” Pod blurts out. Even Gerold looks taken aback. Brienne’s brow furrows. “How could we-,”

“We are going to go the Vale, where no one would expect us to ever go,” Berena should be panicking, but she feels oddly calm. For once she is completely certain of something. This is what must be done. She is not going to scurry back to the North and wait for things to blow over, for the tides to change. She is done with that now. This may end in all their deaths. So be it. She’d rather die for something worth dying for, trying to reclaim her ancestral land, than in a black cell in the Red Keep. 

“We will go to the Vale. I have distant relations there. The Waynwoods and the Royces. I will approach either family, and claim Sansa as my niece and the heir of the North. We can outmaneuver Baelish if we are careful about it. How many men have been competing for Lysa’s hand? They won’t be pleased to find her marrying him. They will be even less pleased when I accuse him of kidnapping my niece.”

“He may have her in hiding, or disguised,” Brienne warns.

“He would likely keep her close. Lysa is her aunt. But I’m not going to try to reason with Lysa Arryn. I’m going to treat with the rest of them.” Berena lets out a quiet breath. “Doubtless Petyr Baelish has already won some of them over. But not all.”

“We stand no chance if we go there alone,” Gerold says. “Mother, Baelish would have you killed as soon as he had word of your presence.”

“We won’t go alone,” Berena says. “I have Lannister gold. I mean to hire men. We must go through part of the Riverlands anyways.” She glances at Brienne meaningfully. “You will have heard of the Brotherhood without Banners?”

“My lady,” Brienne says, forgetting to use Berena’s name entirely in her shock, “they have spent the last two years fighting Lannisters.”

“Then it is very fortunate that I am a Stark.” Berena almost smiles, meeting her son’s uncertain gaze. Gerold looks at her almost curiously, as if he’s never seen her before, and then nods. She feels a brief warmness in her chest, something she has not felt in a long time. Surety. She knows that now. This is the path before them. They may never reach the end of it, but they must try, or what is the point of any of this? She made a silent promise to her brother when he died, and to herself. That she would safeguard his children and that she would see the North again. 

She intends to keep it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question and answer time.
> 
>  **1\. Q: This is the end of the fic? Why a cliffhanger? Why here?** A: I knew I wanted to end on this point (Berena deciding to get her niece back from Baelish's villainous grasp) from about chapter 25 onwards. I initially intended to end this fic at the beginning of the series (chapter 20/21-ish). Then again around chapter 30. The massive outpouring of interest and support for this fic encouraged me to keep going both times. I think this is a solid (if cliffhanger) place to end. I also generally dislike writing past the current canon state of the books. Right now in canon, we are not sure how the Vale plot-line will play out, what will become of the Lannister vs. Tyrell cold war in the capitol, or what will happen in the North. I'm not so confident in my plotting abilities as to speculate. I would love to hear your personal theories.
> 
>  **2\. Q: Will you ever come back to this fic? Will we get to see what happens to other characters (Myriam, Jason, etc)?** A: I am honestly not sure. I can tell you that Myriam will find herself in the midst of some Arianne Martell scheming in Dorne. I can tell you that Jason will find himself in Oldtown during a certain likely future Euron Greyjoy versus Hightowers showdown. Arya and Cat are going to deal with some Freys. In an ideal world I would like to be able to give a definitive ending to this fic, but we're not at that point right now. Maybe in the future I will find myself editing/rewriting sections of this. There are definitely some plot decisions I made initially that, given the choice to do-over, I would take down a different path. 
> 
> **3\. Q: Why didn't you change more from canon? What was the point of *insert*?** A: I started this fic pretty much on a whim. I didn't think it would get much attention at all, especially given it essentially being a Jaime/OC fic, since we see very little of Benjen's personality in canon. This fic absolutely exploded. I am still shocked by how many bookmarks, comments, and general enthusiasm it has been met with. My initial plot plans changed along the course of it. Some major decisions (such as whether or not to kill off Ned, whether or not Cersei would have a legitimate child with Robert) I went back and forth on and even wrote multiple versions of certain scenes. I generally do not write most of my fics ahead of time. Some chapters are very spur of the moment. I also found it very hard to keep up with comments, which I will try to improve on in the future. Please know that if you have commented, I appreciate it and I have (eventually) read all of them.
> 
> Finally: 
> 
> Thank you so much for your readership, your kudos, your bookmarks, your comments, and your overall interest. This is by far my most widely read fanfiction, and my most popular in the ASOIAF fandom. I know it has brought more attention to some of my other ASOIAF fics as well, and to everyone who has potentially recommended this fic or explored my others because of it, thank you so much. One of the best feelings as a writer is knowing people want to see what happens next and have some stakes in your characters and what they do. 
> 
> I am open to prompts and if you have particular suggestions or parts of ASOIAF (characters, families, romantic ships, canon past, present or future hypothetical moments) you would like to see from me, please let me know!


End file.
